Possessions
by rebkos
Summary: When a body possessing demon comes after the Charmed Ones, will they be able to stop the demon without killing its unfortunant host? And if they don't kill the innocent host... will they change history forever? [COMPLETE]
1. Fresh Demon In The Morning

**Possessions**

**A Charmed Fanfiction**

_[This is just a fanfction.  I didn't make up Charmed, don't sue me.  Blah blah blah, legal mumbojumbo] _

Author note: This fanfic takes place near the end of season six.  Post everyone officially finding out Chris is Leo and Piper's son, Pre Phoebe losing her powers and Darryl not talking to the sisters anymore. 

**Chapter One******

**Fresh Demon In The Morning**

            A crescent moon shone through the bedroom window's blinds causing multiple thin bars of moonlight to be cast upon the sleeping girls face; the shaded moon light gave her and her blond hair an eerie blue shade.  A chilled night breeze blew outside, but the inside of the room was well protected from the cold by the tightly sealed window.  The bars of moon light wavered slightly, as if a cloud was passing between them and their source of light.  However the "cloud" was much closer than a standard rain cloud, and, in fact, hover directly outside the window.  The dark shadow looked something like a wisp of smoke, not wholly, not wholly solid.  However, it was quite solid.  Another strong gust of wind shook the trees outside, but did not effect the shadow's presence in any way.  The shadow moved through the window frame, sliding through the gap too narrow for the natural air to slip through.  It moved across the floor, moving in a fluid motion something between rolling and slithering, towards the room's bed and its small occupant.  It reached the bed and partially enveloped a corner of the bed spread which was resting on the floor.  Slowly it slithered up blanket, and then moved across the surface of the bed.  The girl rolled over in her sleep, perhaps unconsciously aware of the evil near the foot of her bed.  The shadow continued moving across the surface of the bed, towards the girl's uncovered, and unprotected, head.  Silently it shimmered over the girls face.  She rolled over, and it promptly followed her movements, both it and the girl oblivious of the teddy bear which had fallen to the floor with a loud squeaking noise.  Her eyelids twitched briefly, as if irritated, then opened.  For a brief moment she stared at the dark shadow blankly, then, as if realizing what it was, her eyes widened in terror and her mouth opened to scream.  However no scream was heard, for the second her mouth had opened the shadow had swirled into it like water down a drain.

# # # #

            Paige Matthews stood at the kitchen counter idly stirring a bowl of cereal with one hand and holding a section of the newspaper with the other. 

The articles showed the usual "news":  Famous movie star divorced other famous movie star!  Man catches really big fish off the coast of Florida!  City Council signs legislations banning donkeys from public pools!

However none of these articles, least of all the fishing one, were the target of Paige's attention.  Instead she was reading a story that received a much smaller headline:

**Young Girl Still Missing After Three Days**

         SAN FRANSICO-Police are starting to suspect foul play in the recent disappearance of an 11 year-old girl.  After the girl disappeared Friday, police were treating the case as a run away.  There were no signs of forced entry into the home in anyway, causing the police to not suspect any foul play.  However, police have admitted that the girls second-story bedroom window was open, and would be easily accessible to anyone with a store bought ladder.  Police searched the area within a 3 mile radius of the house thoroughly, and searched the local Frank Williams Memorial Cemetery twice.  If you have any  information on this disappearance you are asked to call your local police department.  The parent's are begging to keep a look out for their daughter (who is pictured below). 

More on pg27 SectionF.

            Below the story was a picture of a young blond haired girl, smiling broadly at the camera and clutching a brown teddy bear.

            "Mmm... Caffeine."  Someone said.

            Paige glanced up from the newspaper, only now realizing that her half-sister Phoebe had entered the kitchen and was helping herself to the coffee pot.

            "Morning."  Paige said, returning to her paper.

            Phoebe, sipping her coffee, came over to stand beside Paige.  She pushed the paper down a little so she could get a better view of the headlines.  "Anything of interest?"  she began to say, but her words were cut off at "int."

            A shattered coffee mug.  Anger.  Piper trying to blow something up.  Some strange goblin creature.  Fear.  Someone on a bike.  A red car.  Screeching tires.  A loud smashing noise.

            Phoebe gasped in surprise as the premonition abruptly ended.

            Recognizing the reaction, Paige grabbed her sisters shoulder.  "What is it?"

            Phoebe didn't answer.  Before saying anything she stiffly, but firmly placed her coffee mug down on the table.  Then, as if it would secure it more firmly, she twisted the mug back and forth a few times.

            Glancing between the mug and Phoebe, Paige felt her sister might have finally lost it.  Not that she necessarily ever had it to begin with...

            "Okay, now that that's secure."  She said as if this was of great importance.  Then, seeing her sister's expression, "Oh, it broke in my premonition."  She waved her hand vaguely.

            "Right... So what'd you see?"  Paige asked, giving the mug a shifty look.

            "Well the mug broke and dumped coffee everywhere... and Piper blew something."

            "What are we blowing up?"  Piper interrupted, entering the kitchen carrying Wyatt.

            "Phoebe had a premonition."  Paige answered quickly.  "What else did you see?"

            "This weird goblin creature."  Phoebe screwed up her face as if trying to imitate what it looked like.

            "Careful, you might just stick like that," said Piper who wasn't even looking at her sister anymore (who now was stretching her face out in a vain attempt to look gaunt), and was instead focusing her attention on getting Wyatt situated in a high chair.

             Shaking her head in disgust at Phoebe's facial expressions (the most recent of which caused Wyatt to giggle), Paige took charge of the situation.  "Let's check the book."

            Phoebe nodded and followed Paige.  The two got as far as the doorway before realizing Piper wasn't following.

            "Coming?"  Phoebe asked.

            "I have a baby to feed," looking at the two of them only long enough to speak before directing her attention back to Wyatt.  "Aw gees, he hasn't even had his breakfast and he's already been corrupted for the day."

            Paige raised an eyebrow and then realized her nephew had his hands on his face, trying to imitate Phoebe, but only succeeding in making his lower lip roll down a little.

            Phoebe laughed, then followed Paige out of the room.

            "We need to have our breakfast before we can go vanquishing now don't we," Piper said to Wyatt in a googoo gaagaa baby voice while pouring some cheerios out onto the tray attached to the high chair.

            Wyatt giggled and jammed a cheerio (and half his fist) in his mouth.  Piper poured herself a cup of coffee and picked up the newspaper which had been discarded by Phoebe.  She scanned the headlines, sipped her coffee and glanced briefly back at Wyatt to make sure he was content with his breakfast before she started reading one of the articles.  However, when Piper looked back at her paper she had to do a double take.  The article she had been about to read was gone.  It wasn't that Piper had accidentally looked at the wrong place on the paper, or that the article seemed to have been mysteriously replaced by an advertisement for car repair, the article itself had simply been burned away by something greenish that was now slowly moving outward in a circle disintegrating the paper.  Piper dropped the paper in surprise, and glanced at Wyatt as she heard the soft whoosh of his force field rising.  Her maternal instincts kicked in a moment before her Witch instincts did, causing her to look at Wyatt instead of up at the impending danger.  Only when a sickening splanting noise of green ooze falling from the ceiling reached her ears did Piper actually look up and see the gaunt grotesque creature holding onto the wall like an over grown gecko.  Fortunately the creature didn't seemed inclined to attack.  Yet.  The greenish brown claws protruding from its fingers and toes did not look appealing.

            The creature simply sat crouched on the ceiling slowly twisting its gaunt brownish head left and right.  It's skin, seemingly dead and lifeless, slid back and forth across the top of its bald head in grotesque rippling motions.  The rest of the creatures body seemed nothing more than a human like skeleton with loose skin covering it, randomly sliding this way or that as the creature rocked back and forth. 

It didn't take long for Piper to realize the acid substance burning through the morning paper was foaming from the creatures mouth.

Blowing up a demon directly over her head was really not appealing.

Slowly, very slowly, she began backing towards Wyatt and away from the creature.

"Nice demon... Stay... Stay..."  She doubted the demon would respond to the cooing acceptable by dogs, but it was worth a shot.

            Piper had gone no more than two feet from where she had initially stood before the creature gave a growl and crouched closer to the ceiling.  Piper was positive it was preparing to lung at her.  Two feet was far enough. 

            Piper raised her arms and flicked her fingers at the creature in an attempt to blow it up, and instead only succeeded in having herself covered with the chalky powder falling from the hole in the roof.  The creature had leapt nimbly down from the ceiling onto the kitchen counter and back up to the ceiling in the time it took Piper to realize she hadn't blown up the creature.   A searing pain in her leg drew Piper's attention, and she looked down half expecting to see the green acid burning through her pant leg.  Instead, she saw a broken coffee mug and the majority of the hot coffee that had been in it on her leg.  The creature must have knocked the mug off the table when it leapt down.

            Piper looked back up quickly at the sound of the creature scampering across the ceiling.

            "Oh no you don't!"

            Piper raised her hands and hesitated when she realized it's scampering had lead it to the spot on the ceiling directly over Wyatt. 

            Wyatt, safely oblivious in his force field, was diligently eating his cheerios.

            Piper's view of Wyatt was suddenly hindered when Phoebe and Paige orbed in front of Wyatt, but facing Piper. 

            "What'd you blo-"  Phoebe began.

            "Behind you!"  Piper cut her off, point at the ceiling.

            Paige and Phoebe spun around at the same instant the creature gave a shrill snarl and launched itself at them. 

            Paige made a frantic, but futile, grab for Phoebe's arm then orbed out of danger.  The creature, seemingly oblivious of Paige's disappearance (and reappearance standing next to Piper), landed on Phoebe and raked a clawed hand across her face before scampering out of the room. 

            "I got him!"  Piper said sharply and ran out of the room after the creature.

            Paige rushed to Phoebe's side.  The thick claw marks extended from Phoebe's forehead to the base of her jaw, and all five were bleeding profusely.

            "Leo!"  Paige shouted to the air and a split second later the elder appeared.

            "Leo!  Heal!  Now!"

            "What happened?"  He asked he promptly kneeled next to Phoebe and, using his white lighter/elder powers, began to heal her.

            Paige opened her mouth to speak as the sound of something blowing up reached their ears.

"Where's Piper?"  Leo asked, leaving his first question unanswered. 

His second question was left unanswered too as Paige promptly orbed to the entrance hallway to help Piper. 

The creature hadn't predicted how slick the wood paneling would be, and slid precariously across the floor, its claws trying in vain to get a grip. 

"Come back here you slimy sack of bones!"  Piper yelled at the creature as it ran towards the stairs.  She was unaware of the fact that Paige had orbed in behind her.

"Let's cut it off," Paige said grabbing Piper's shoulder.

Paige orbed the two of them into the creature's path.  It skidded to a sudden halt, turned around to ran towards the door.

"Oh no you don't."  Piper flicked her hands and succeeded in blowing up the creature as it was momentarily off balance.

Piper took a deep breath and relaxed her tense shoulders; then she smacked Paige's arm. 

"Don't orb up behind me like that!" she said, waving her hands in front of her face.  "Stupid demons usually don't smoke this much."

Because of the gray haze that now filled the entrance hallway, neither Piper nor Paige noticed the dark gray cloud fly from the center of the haze and straight through the front door. 

"Did you get it?"  Phoebe asked, entering the room promptly followed by Leo who was carrying Wyatt. 

Leo had clearly done a fine job healing Phoebe's face, but the evidence of the wounds were still on her blue top which had several dark streaks of blood going down it.

"Yeah.  Are you okay?"  Piper asked, moving towards a window to crack it open to help clear some of the smoke.

"I'll be fine but my top is ruin-"  She was cut off by the loud tire screeching and crashing noise that came from the road directly in front of the Halliwell house.

**24 Minutes Earlier**

            Chris stood at the corner of a major intersection.  He wasn't preparing to cross the street or anything.  He wasn't even people watching.  Instead, he was in a heated argument with a police officer.

            "My mother died five years ago today!"  Chris said heatedly while gesturing at the cemetery he and the peace officer were standing next to.  "I visit her grave every year today!"

            "I understand that," the officer said calmly, allowing no emotion to show.  "But we are in the middle of an investigation."

            Chris glared and gritted his teeth.  This wasn't getting him anywhere...  Giving up, he spun around and stomped over to the corner and began pushing the button, which would allow him to cross, over and over.  Once the walk signal lit up, Chris stomped across the street, attracting the attention of an old woman driving an old car that was obviously too large for her. 

            "Young people are so angry these days..."  She muttered to herself as he stormed by.  She was completely ignoring the fact the left turn signal light was lit up.

            The driver in a red car behind her honked his horn several times, and then made some nasty comment over his cell phone about old drivers. 

By the time the woman realized why the man was honking, the light had already turned yellow, but she drove through it anyway.  The light however, turned red before the red car reached the white line on the street.  Since the man had realized there was a police officer standing on the corner, watching him, he decided it was best not to run the red.


	2. Road Rage

**Chapter Two******

**Road Rage**

            While inside the Halliwell house there was a demon running amuck, outside was a peaceful Sunday morning scene.  The mild San Francisco weather had made it a beautiful day.  People were walking their dogs, kids were playing outside, people were out driving with their convertible tops down, and a particular Halliwell neighbor was out riding her bike.

The teenaged girl pedaled along rather aimlessly, not fully paying attention to where she was going, but not really oblivious of her surroundings.  She had been zigzagging back and forth across the road, but, upon spotting an on coming red car, began gradually moving farther to the right side of the road.

A muted crashing noise from the house to her right suddenly drew her attention.  What was that?  Sounded a bit loud to be a dish being broken...  She stopped her peddling and stared at the house as her bike slowly cruised by the house.  What happened next happened too fast for her brain to fully register.  A black cloud suddenly appeared in front of the house, almost as if it had passed straight through the front door.  The cloud shot through the air as if it had been forced into motion by some sort of explosion.  Unfortunately for the girl on the bike, but fortunately for the cloud, it was on a direct collision course with her.

The driver of the car that the girl had spotted moments before was oblivious to the appearance of any such dark cloud, and instead was busily looking under the seat for his dropped cell phone. Due to his obliviousness of the road in front of his own car, he had no more than a split second to react to the sudden swerving of the girl on the bicycle.  A split second is simply not enough.

In truth the girl hadn't intentionally, or even accidentally, swerved in front of the car, but when the cloud struck her it didn't pass through her like it had through the door, and instead seemed to be absorbed into her.  The sudden force from the cloud knocked the girl and bicycle into the on coming traffic.

            In a sense it was fortunate that when the cloud had struck her it had partially knocked her off the bike.  When the car struck the bike she was bucked off the completely, and thrown over the entire car, bouncing off the car's trunk, and then landing painfully on the ground.  Her bike, however, became twisted and mangled under the car's front right tire.  The chain snapped, the gear spokes ripped into the car tire, and the bike quickly no longer looked like one.

            The driver's delayed reaction to the sudden crash, and the sudden blow out of his car's tire caused him to slam on the breaks and swerve violently into a mail box on the curb.

            "What on earth,"  Piper said to no one in particular as she peered out the front window.  "Oh, god!  Leo!"

            "Piper?  What is it?"  Leo said and he walked up to the window and looked out for himself.  "Oh..."  He frowned slightly.

            "Heal!  Go now!"  Piper began shoving him towards the door, and Phoebe and Paige both curiously replace Leo and Piper at the window.

            "What?"  Piper demanded when she realize Leo wasn't exactly dashing out the door to the rescue, and was instead look rather hesitant.

            "This is a common occurrence," he said slowly, looking at Piper cautiously.  "Unless we have some reason to believe there is something evil I really shouldn't be-"

            Piper lividly interrupted, "Leo are you telling me there is a kid outside who just got hit by a car and you aren't willing to do-!"

            "Wait," this time Phoebe interrupted them.  "My premonition,  I saw this in my premonition, so we've got to do something!"  Phoebe wasn't entirely sure that followed, but she did agree with Piper, and with or without Leo she was going to go out there and beat some sense into the driver who was still sitting in his car looking stunned.

            Leo hesitated for another second, but the three, identical, crossed looks on the sister's faces was rather intimidating.

            "Alright!" he said, giving in finally.  "But you two have to keep the driver distracted.  Piper take Wyatt," he added almost as an after thought.

            "Sounds good,"  Phoebe said throwing the door open and rushing out.

            As Phoebe and Paige went to distract the driver, Piper and Leo jogged over to the motionless rider, whom they now saw to be teenaged girl, no older than sixteen years old. 

            "Broken leg... concussion..."  Leo muttered to himself, kneeling next to the girl.  "She's not breathing either..."  He held his hands a few inches above her chest and was prepared to begin healing her when Piper grabbed his arm.

            "Only heal things below the surface."

            "What?"  He demanded, well aware that the girls heart beat was slowing down and she'd be clinically dead in mere moments.

            "No one gets hit by a car without getting scratched, heal things below the surface, leave the cuts and bruises," Piper indicated the ripped t-shirt sleeve and the nasty scratch underneath it.

            "Alright," Leo said, sounding flustered, he'd never half healed before, that almost seemed sacrilegious.

            Meanwhile, Paige and Phoebe were doing an excellent job distracting the driver.  They had succeeded in getting him out of his car, and out of ear shot of Piper and Leo.

            "Okay now interlace your fingers behind your head, and flap your arms like a bird," Phoebe said earnestly while demonstrating.  She and Paige had managed to convince the man that he may have broken his neck and they had to make sure he hadn't.

            "Oh I think I felt something pop," Paige insisted, her hands firmly on his shoulders, acting as the last resort if he tried to turn around.

            "Okay, point your arms straight up," Phoebe demonstrated.  "And wiggle your fingers."

            Paige glanced behind her momentarily when she heard a soft groan, but then quickly focused on the driver again when she easily saw the bright gold glow from Leo's hands.

            "What's taking so long?"  Piper whispered curiously.

            "Trying to heal only under the surface is harder than it seems," he whispered back.

            The girl gave an groan as her leg magically snapped back into place and healed seamlessly.

            "I'm going to try to wake her up now," Leo whispered, slowly sliding his hand under her helmeted head.  It would be easier to keep his hand above her head, but he couldn't risk her opening her eyes to a bright gold light.

            "Did you call 911?"  The driver asked Phoebe and Paige, his voice clearly showing he was recovering from his shock of hitting the biker, and starting to suspect crossing his arms and head banging was not an actual test to see if someone had broken their neck.

            "Oh, um, well..."  Phoebe stuttered for a moment, but then seeing Piper flash her a thumbs up she quickly finished her thought.  Phoebe quickly pulled out her cell phone, "I'll do that right now!"

            Piper had signaled her sister because the girl had opened her eyes.

            "What happened?"  She asked, sounding groggy while attempting, and failing, to sit up.

            "Hey sweetie," Piper said, immediately assuming the maternal role.  "You had a little accident with your bike."

            The girl stared up at them confused.  Who were these two people, well three if you counted the baby, hovering over her?  What had happened?  She turned her head slowly and saw the car with its front wheel up on the street curb, a smashed mail box on the neighbors lawn, and next to the broken mail box of piece of metal that look painted the familiar blue color of her bike.  She had been riding down the street and... the memory flashed through her mind, a dark cloud had knocked her over...  No... that was ridiculous...

            "I must have lost control of my bike..."  She muttered, trying to sit up again, but promptly became dizzy and slumped back down, her helmet bouncing softly on the blacktop.

            "Ambulance is on its way!"  Phoebe shouted over to Piper and Leo.  She saw the girl was conscious, though still laying down, Leo wouldn't try to heal her anymore.  "Well I don't think you broke your neck," she said, returning her attention to the driver who immediately turned around to look at the bicyclist.

            Paige was still standing in his way, so he side stepped to his right, only to have Paige quickly follow the motion to block his view.  He went to his left, and Paige followed, wondering why had Phoebe stop conning him.  Seeing Phoebe's frantic waving, she realized Leo must have stopped doing anything worth hidng. 

            "Heh heh... Sorry..." Paige muttered and stepped out of the way.

            "You okay kid?"  The driver asked, sounding as if it was more of a formality to ask, than a sincere question.

            "I think I'm okay," the girl mumbled.  "My head hurts a lo-"

            "So why the hell weren't you watching where you were going!"  Immediately the driver's true intentions were obvious.  "You know how much damage your bike probably did to the underside of my car!  That car is worth more than you and your bike, that's for sure!"  He gestured violently at the ruined tire and chipped paint.

            "Hey!  Stop right there mister!"  Piper snapped and got in the man's face.  Piper didn't need to be facing down a demon to look intimidating.  Even with Wyatt squirming in her arms, no mere mortal was going to easily ignore the furious blaze in her eyes.  "I don't know whose fault this was, but I'm pretty sure that hunk of junk you call a car had plenty more damage than the few scratches one little bike caused!"  Though Piper mentally admitted the damage looked pretty bad, she was too angry to admit that verbally.

            The man made a face as if he'd just had the wind knocked out of him.  "Well I still want her insuran-"  He was cut off by the loud sound of approaching sirens.

            The girl, turning bright red and looking thoroughly embarrassed, tried to jump to her feet before the ambulance driver could see her laying on the ground.  Instead of standing in a dignified, but bruised, manner, she immediately lost her balance and was only saved by Leo's quick movement to catch her.

            "Thanks..." she muttered, turning, if possibly, redder.

            The ambulance came to a halt in front of the scene of the accident, and was quickly followed by two police cars and, even though there wasn't one to put out, a fire engine.  The ambulance team came forward and began examining the driver and the girl, and two police officers came forward to take statements.  Wyatt, slightly to Piper's relief, decided he didn't like sirens and burst out crying, so Piper managed to excuse herself and went back into the house.

            Piper closed the door and leaned against it, unconsciously bouncing an already calm Wyatt up and down as she surveyed the mess left over from the demon hunt.  A flower vase lay smashed on the floor surrounded by the singed remains of its floral contents, there were atleast two burn marks on the rug, and a large amount of ash directly in front of Piper where the demon had met its untimely demise. 

            "How about we go find out what Mr. Demon was?" she said to a content Wyatt who was now actively chewing on his shirt sleeve.

            Piper walked past a burn mark on the wall, and up the stairs to the attic of the old family house.  The Book of Shadows sat on its usual pedestal in the middle of the room, and, as usual, Piper felt a strange surge or reassurance every time she saw it laying there, knowing that a long line of Halliwells had added so much knowledge to the book.  Surely one of them had encountered that _thing_ before.  Right?

            First she sat Wyatt down in his play pen, where he began distract himself with a stuffed animal to bite on, then she turned to the book.

            Piper had flipped through atleast two-hundred pages of demons, looking for something that looked even remotely like the creature they had encountered that morning, before her sisters and Leo entered the attic. 

            "Hey, any luck?"  Paige said promptly looking over her sister's shoulder.

            "Not a bit..."  She bit her lip and turned a couple more pages.  "How's the kid?"  she asked as if suddenly remembering.

            Phoebe turned away from Wyatt, who she had been making faces at, and looked at Piper.  "Well it turns out she just lived up the street, family just moved in so I guess that's why we didn't recognize her.  Paramedics didn't find anything wrong with her, of course," she gave an almost arrogant smile and looked at Leo who didn't seem to find anything he did out of the ordinary. "So she gave the driver her phone number and address, and then the ambulance took her to the hospital.  Her parents are going to have to sign some paperwork to get her out."  Phoebe concluded with a shrug and turned back to Wyatt.

            "What's up?"  Piper asked.

            "Hmm?"  Phoebe continued looking at Wyatt and no one else.

            "Come on, I don't need to be empathic to know you are hiding something, what's else?"  Piper closed the book and walked over to her sister, with Paige quickly following.

            Phoebe hesitated for a moment before finally turning and facing her sisters. 

            "I felt something demonic," she said bluntly.

            "Yeah well I'm pretty sure we all did earlier," Paige replied with unnecessary sarcasm.  

            "No mean outside, at the accident..."  she bit her lip.

            Piper's eyebrows shot up in surprise.  Another demon?  Within minutes of the first one?

            "Where was it coming from?"  Paige asked.

            "I'm not entirely sure... it felt scattered... confused... angry... but also scared..."  she shook her head slowly, trying to sort out the feelings.

            "Well I'm not so sure I'd be surprised if that asshol-"

            "Hey!  Baby ears!"  Piper interrupted suddenly and gestured at Wyatt.

            Paige cringed, "sorry... Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if that driver had a little bit of demon in him."

            "Maybe..."  Phoebe said slowly.  "But that doesn't explain why it felt so scattered..."

            "Could it have just been some left over demon feelings from Piper's vanquish?"  Leo asked, his arms crossed and his face showing a great deal of concern.

            Phoebe started to nod, but then started shaking her head instead.  "I don't think so... It was something... else..."


	3. Awaken The Darkness

_[A/N,  I posted this one so soon after the last one, because its more of a chapter where not much action happens, but its there more to move the story along.  However, before I update again I want some reviews so get writing people ;) ] _

**Chapter Three******

**Awaken The Darkness**

            Normally when parents go out for a nice day together, just the two of them, they don't like to receive a phone call from a hospital, asking them to come pick up their daughter.  Once the shock of hearing their daughter had been hit by a car has worn off, and the realization that she was okay kicks in, they might get slightly angry with the fact they had to spend several hours, and dollars, on paper work and care.  This situation was, of course, no different.  Her father had spent the better part of an hour screaming at her for being a careless bike rider, and immediately assumed it was her fault.  It might have been, she didn't really know whose fault it was, and explaining that she wasn't sure didn't helping her case.  Neither of her parents seemed to care that she _could_ have been killed, the fact that she hadn't meant she could be yelled at.  In the end she screamed at both her parents, told them that she hated them, then stormed up stairs, and slammed and locked her bedroom door behind her. 

            She didn't bother turning on the light, it was already eight o'clock, and though that wasn't exactly a late night for her, today had been too exhausting.  Between the accident and her screaming parents she just wanted to disappear into the darkness of her room.  The moon shone brightly through her window, easily lighting the path to her bed, so with little effort she navigated through the mess on her floor, and threw herself onto her bed, not bothering to change into her pajamas.

            Stupid parents... Stupid driver getting her into trouble... It hadn't been her fault... It couldn't have been her fault... Everyone was always blaming her for something she hadn't done... Sometimes she wished they'd just all die...

            She clenched her fists.  She hated them all.

            Slowly the rage inside of her grew.  Normally she never got this angry.  Normally she'd take several calming deep breathes and try to talk things out. 

            Normally there wasn't a demon inside her slowly taking over her body without her knowledge.

# # # #

            "Kayla?"  Her mother knocked softly on her daughter's door before she opened it slightly.  "Kay sweetie?"  She blinked in surprise. 

Her daughters room was usually a mess, but this was ridiculous.  All the blankets had been ripped off her bed and were sitting in a wadded pile on the floor.  The blankets were in such a tangled mess that she briefly entertained the thought that the pile looked like a nest. 

"Kay, you need to get up and get ready for school."  She sat down on her daughter's bare bed.  "Come on, I know you are mad but still..."  she nudged the pile of blankets with her foot. 

The pile of blankets shook slightly and a soft hissing noise came from it.

"Kayla Laura Couter, you will get up this instant and get ready for school," the woman stood up sharply, grabbed a blanket and pulled hard. 

She barely had enough time to let out a small scream before the creature that had been huddled under the blankets gave a high pitch growl and lunged at her.

# # # #

            At the exact same moment the creature struck, Piper was suddenly awaken by a screaming Wyatt.  Piper gave a soft groan and rolled over to glance at her alarm clock.  Six-thirty in the morning.  Wyatt hadn't woken her up at the crack of dawn in quite awhile, she wondered curiously what caused his sudden fit.

            "Mmm... What is it Wyatt?"  She asked as she forced herself to sit up.

            Wyatt, of course, didn't answer and just continued crying. 

            Piper dragged herself across the room to Wyatt's crib and picked him up.  "You need a diapy change?"  she asked in a forced perky voice.  "No?  Well then what is wrong?"  She bounced him up and down making shooshing noises.  Since she couldn't tell what was wrong with him, Piper couldn't figure out what to do to calm him down.  It wasn't long before Phoebe and Paige came in looking curiously at Wyatt and Piper.  Phoebe was already dressed for work and holding a cup of coffee, but Paige looked ready to go back to bed.

            "What's wrong little man?"  Phoebe asked coming over.

            "I think he might have had a bad dream," Piper said.  "I can't figure out any other reason for him to be crying."

            "Mmm..."  Was Paige's only thought on the matter.  She had been out late the night before and she wasn't awake enough to be coherent yet.

            "Maybe if I can distract him with food," Piper mused and headed out her bedroom door.

            Once down stairs Piper practically had to force Wyatt into his high chair.

            "What is wrong with him?"  Paige asked, sipping some coffee.

            "I have no clue... Look Wyatt, cereal, mmm?  Cereal good!"  She poured some cheerios in front of him.  Wyatt ignored the cereal and instead began smashing his little fists on the high chair's table.

"Come on Wyatt..."

            "Wyatt!  Look!  Mmm so tasty!"  Phoebe said excitedly and put a cheerio in her mouth. 

            Again, Wyatt ignored them. 

            "Does he want his daddy?"  Paige asked.

            "Maybe,"  Piper said slowly, "Leo!"

            Instantly Leo orbed in next to them.

            "What's up?"  He asked, but quickly noticed the screaming Wyatt.  "Hey buddy, what's wrong?"

            Wyatt stop crying the second he made eye-contact with Leo.

            "Ta da!" Paige said cheerfully.

            "Well I guess we found our solution," Phoebe patted Leo's shirt.  "Love to stay and chat, but I've got to get to work."

            "So early?"  Piper asked as Phoebe started leaving the kitchen.

            "Yeah, I have a giant stack of letters left over from last week that I need to stop putting off.  See ya!"

            Piper was pretty sure that wasn't the whole story, but she didn't see a point in pursuing the point, plus she heard Wyatt giggling.  She turned around and saw Leo bending down next to the high chair with his tongue out and a cheerio on the tip of it.  Wyatt was giggling at Leo as he brought the cheerio in and out of his mouth, crossing his eyes each time.  Piper couldn't help but smile at her ex-husbands antics. 

            "Hey," Paige suddenly said, "Where has our favorite nephew been hiding?"

            Piper didn't know the answer to her question, she hadn't seen Chris recently.  "Probably out looking for a new demon for us to fight," Piper rolled her eyes.  Demons found and attacked them often enough, it seemed almost anti-productive to go looking for new ones to pick fights with.

            In fact, Piper was completely correct.  Chris was out looking for a demon for them to fight, but he was a day too late. 

He passed under the large slightly rusted sign, ignoring it.  Mostly because he didn't care.  It was a cemetery, he didn't know or care who Frank Williams was, nor did he care why the cemetery was dedicated to him.  The police had finally called off the search of the grave yard, and all Chris knew or cared about was finding the right grave.  He knew it was on the north side of the cemetery, under a fairly young oak tree.  Chris hated cemeteries.  For one, the thought of bodies of mortals being thrown in random holes in the ground seemed wasteful, and in this case deadly.  For another, being surrounded with death was particularly unpleasant after the all too recent death of his fiancée, and the impending death of his...  Chris stopped walking, closed his eyes, and cleared his thoughts.  He couldn't be thinking about anything angry or vengeful, especially when dealing with _this_ demon.  Slowly Chris managed to focus on his goal: save Wyatt from evil.  It wasn't a particularly pleasant thought after recent events, but it wasn't an angry one, and it certainly was a consuming thought.

            He walked across the cemetery, taking the most direct route to the north side, carelessly stepping on any grave that happened to be in his path.

            Once he reached the tree Chris couldn't help but smile.  The last time he'd seen the tree it was thicker than his leg, now it was no more than a sapling that he could easily grip the trunk, and possibly rip it out of the ground with little effort.

            Now where was the demon?  It was very powerful.  Its evil presence could even be felt by passing mortals; a select few could even see the creature.  Chris blinked.  Where was it?  He shouldn't have necessarily seen it, in fact he shouldn't have.  The creature hated daylight.  The only way it could move around during the day would be by possessing a body.  Still, Chris should have been able to feel its presence.  It should be in the grave he was stand over, dormant, until... unless.  Every muscle in Chris's body tensed.  Unless he had remember the date wrong and it was already awake.

            Ignoring the fact that anyone could have seen him, Chris orbed.

            "Has Phoebe had a premonition?"  He demanded as he appeared in the kitchen.

            Piper jumped in surprise.  "Good morning to you too, and yes she did."

            Chris went pale.  "Where is she!  And Paige!  That demon could attack any minute and you three need to be ready to vanquish it."

            "Well Phoebe is at work,"  Piper said while carelessly pouring more cheerios for Wyatt, Leo had eaten about half of them before leaving and Piper wanted to make sure Wyatt had a proper breakfast.  "Paige is upstairs taking a shower, and you, are about twenty-four hours too late."

            "What?"  He asked, shocked.

            "We vanquished it," Piper stared at Chris curiously. "Yesterday."

            "Just like that?"  Chris snapped his fingers.

            "No more like this," Piper flicked her fingers at Chris sarcastically.  "Chris?  What's going on?  This some sort evil future demon?"

            "Yes! I mean... it is... was... near future," he snapped, running a hand through his hair, looking thoroughly confused.  That demon had taken a power of three spell hadn't it?  Had he not only mistaken the date the demon would attack, but the demon itself?  There were too many future demon attacks he knew about...  They were all starting to mix together in his mind...

            "I've got to go," he said suddenly.

            Piper had barely even opened her mouth to speak before Chris orbed out.

            "Who ya talking to?"  Paige asked walking in just in time to miss seeing Chris.

            "You're favorite nephew,"  Piper said almost unconsciously answering the question and biting her lip.  "He's up to something..."

            "Well yeah," Paige said in her most "DUH!" voice, "He usually is."

            "Well I wish he would tell us what was going on for once, instead of just telling us what to do."  Piper said exasperated.

            "You hear that?"  Paige said suddenly cocking her head to the side.

            "Yeah...  Sirens..."

            "Coming up the street,"  Paige said in surprise, and walked right out of the kitchen, and towards the front door.

            "Want to go see what the policemen are doing here today Wyatt?"  Piper asked Wyatt, who she expected to be indifferent.  Instead Wyatt burst out crying.  Apparently someone really didn't like sirens.

            "Leo!"  Piper shouted, and instantly he appeared.  "Watch your son a minute okay?"

            "O...k..."  He said looking confused, but more than happy to have an excuse to be with Wyatt.

            Piper quickly left the room and jogged to catch up with Paige who already had a fair head start.

            By the time they had arrived at the house down the street the police had already set up police tape around the whole yard, and the police were busily trying to disperse the crowd that had already gathered.

            One investigator was being particularly vocal in attempting to disperse the crowd.

            "Folk please!  Step away from the line!"  Darryl Morris shouted to the crowd.  "We have a serious investigation going on here!"

            Piper and Paige, of course, ignored the request and moved towards the police tape.

            "What's up Darryl?"  Paige asked as she reached the front of the crowd.

            "Hey, maybe you guys can help explain... something,"  Darryl looked extremely anxious, yet slightly relieved to see them.

            Paige and Piper ducked under the police tape and started following Darryl, but they were promptly cut off by a uniformed officer.

            "Ladies I'm going to have to ask you to step back," he said firmly.

            "It's alright sergeant, they're with me," Darryl interjected.

            "But Lieutenant-" the sergeant began, but stopped when he received a rather stern look from his superior. "Yes Sir!"

            As they approached the front of the house Piper saw the front window was smashed, and the flower bed below it was littered with the broken shards.  Piper also noticed the window, which was the focus of several who investigators taking pictures of it and dusting it for prints, had a large amount of a red substance on it. 

            Right before they reached the front door Darryl stopped and turned to them.  "Now this is a fresh crime scene so if there is anyway you can..." he did a small finger flick at Piper, "to help make sure you don't contaminate anything..." 

            Piper rolled her eyes and flicked her hands, causing a deafening silence to come over the crime scene and the crowd, both of which were now frozen in time.

            "Alright, lets go figure out what Darryl wanted us to see,"  Piper said, heading for the front door.  Paige promptly followed right behind her.


	4. Hatred Wagon

**Chapter Four******

**Hatred Wagon**

Piper carefully slid between a frozen police officer and the half opened door of the house, trying not to disturb either one of them. She gave a sharp intake of breath and automatically averted her eyes.

"Oh yuck," Paige said from the doorway.

"Oh yuck" was a rather simple way to put it, and somehow it didn't quite sum up the bloody scene. The couch was on its backside, its cushions ripped to shreds; a standing lamp was on the floor, its lamp shade gone and its bulb smashed; along with other assorted mess on the ground, old magazines and left over pizza, was the bloodied remains of a man.

"It looks like a wild animal attacked," Paige said softly, approaching the body, and turning a little green in the face. "Yeah look, there're claw marks." She pointed at the mans neck.

Piper, forcing herself not to throw up, looked at the body. However, instead of looking at the claw marks, she couldn't help but look at the man's face. His eyes were wide with terror, and his mouth was hanging open. Whatever had attacked him had certainly given him quite a shock...

"What's this?" Paige asked, pointing her finger towards something green on the man's chest.

Piper grabbed Paige's wrist. "Don't touch that!"

"I wasn't going to, I know its a crime scene," Paige rolled her eyes.

"That's not why," Piper said, shock creeping into her voice. "The last time I saw green slime like that, a demon was crouched over my head." She glanced up, almost expecting to see the creature she had vanquished the day before sitting on the ceiling.

Paige stared in surprise. "This must be what Darryl meant..." She glanced around looking for more evidence of a demon having been present. Instead something else caught her eye: a bicycle helmet laying in the corner.

She stood up and walked over to it, careful not to step on any frozen officer's feet.

"This looks familiar," she said, picking it up.

"Paige! You aren't suppose to be touching things!"

"Well, oh well! Look at it," she thrust it towards Piper.

"It's a helmet, what's your point?"

"This," she spun the helmet around and pointed at the deep scratches in the side of it. Along with the scratches were several pieces of gravel deeply embedded into the plastic covering of the foam helmet. "Most helmets don't get marks like that unless their riders fall off very hard... or are, say... hit by a car!"

Piper stared. While this new theory registered, something caught her eye. Something was clutched in the dead man hand.

"Paige... I think you maybe onto something..." Forgetting it was a crime scene, she slid the piece of paper out of his frozen grip. "Ever Ready Issuance," she read from the paper.

"The accident yesterday! That was the drivers insurance!"

"Then this is the girl's house," Piper finished the thought.

"Where is she then?" Paige asked, glancing at the mangled body of what she was now assuming was the girls father and shuddered.

"I don't know... let's check upstairs."

On the stairs they had to dodge between two frozen detectives, taking pictures of a trail of blood leading down the stairs. The two sisters followed the trail to a bed room. Here they found another body, a woman, the girls mother, more brutally mangled than the man's downstairs.

"Look there's more of the demon's slime," Paige pointed at the floor which was covered in small burn marks with slime residue.

Suddenly a though struck Piper.

"What did Phoebe say she felt at the accident?"

Paige stared blankly for a moment, then remembered what Piper was referring to. "Something about feeling something scattered and demonic."

"What if the parents didn't call back Mr. My-Car-Is-Worth-So-Much... and he turned out to be a revenge seeking demon..." Piper thought out loud.

"She did give him her home address since she didn't have their insurance information," Paige's eyes lit up as all the pieces fell into place.

"We have to track this guy down somehow..." Piper bit her lip.

"Hatred wagon!" Paige cried out enthusiastically.

Piper raised her eyebrows confused. "What?"

"His license plate! It was one of those vanity plates it said 'hatred wagon!'" Paige was delighted with her remembering the small detail of the plate. "Well I guess it didn't really say 'Hatred Wagon'... but it said H-T-R-D-W-G-N!" She moved her index finger through the air as she spoke, as if writing out each letter in the air.

Piper stared at her, her mouth opening and closing slowly like a fish.  
"Paige..." Piper covered her eyes with her hand. "Are you sure it wasn't suppose to say 'Hot Red Wagon?'"

Paige blinked and drew back in mild surprise. "Oh."

"Yeah. 'Oh'." Piper nodded sarcastically. "Come on, let's get Darryl to run the plate number."

"Letters."

"Whatever!"

The two of them inched their way around the crime scene, being careful not to touch anything or anyone, and retook their positions standing directly in front of Darryl on the front lawn.

With a quick wave of Piper's hands the crowd was suddenly muttering to itself again, the police officers were shouting orders of dispersal, and Darryl was standing there, starring at them expectantly.

"So whenever you're ready," he said, nodding rapidly.

"We need you to run a plate number," Piper told him.

"But you haven't – Oh..." he had gestured at the house, but then realized where he erred.

"Hatred wagon," Paige said quickly.

"Hot red wagon," Piper corrected, exasperated.

Darryl looked confused.

"H-T-R-D-W-G-N" the two said in perfect synchronism.

Darryl drew his eyebrows together in surprise and confusion, and, dumbstruck, walked to his patrol car and climbed inside it. After a minute of typing on a small keyboard in the patrol car, and another moment of scribbling the information on a piece of paper, he stepped back out of the car.

"Owner is Matthew Rowe, age 43, five foot-sev-"

"Less details, more location!" Paige said frustrated, not particularly caring if Darryl could tell her his shoe size.

"Well you might like the little detail that he's been arrested and charged twice for assault with a deadly weapon," Darryl said bluntly. "Do you mind telling me how he fits into that," he pointed at the house.

"We don't know for a fact that it does... Not yet atleast," Piper bit her lip. "But it's defiantly something demonic, and he might have a connection."

"Well here is his last known home address and company address as of when this record was last updated, three years ago," he handed them the piece of paper.

Piper took it from him and read it quickly.

"Wilson and Allen Investing," she mumbled. "Never heard of them, but the address is downtown." She turned to Paige, "we better get Phoebe for this."

# # # #

"Would you mind telling me what is going on atleast?" Leo asked picking up Wyatt.

"There is a demon somewhere killing innocents and we have to find it, I just want to make sure Wyatt is safe," Piper told him easily. She didn't add the fact that she didn't know anything about the demon other than it drooled burning green acid. "Leo please."

"Alright, alright," he orbed, taking Wyatt with him.

With their always perfect timing Paige and Phoebe walked through the front door.

"I hope this is important, I was in the middle of a very important business meeting," Phoebe said, looking flushed and flustered.

"Gawking at underage interns doesn't count as a business meeting," Paige mumbled in a peevish sing song voice.

Phoebe slapped Paige's arm while Piper make a face, "Yeech..."

"Hey! Why are we wasting time! I thought we had a demon to fight!" Phoebe snap, desperate to change the subject.

"We wouldn't have wasted so much time if you hadn't insisted on driving back," Paige said, still enjoying irritating her half sister.

"Alright, that's enough," Piper cut in before Phoebe could make a rebuttal. "Let's go."

The traffic was fairly light, and most of the traffic lights were in their favor, so it only took ten minutes for the sisters to arrive at the investing firm's parking lot; it was more than enough time to fill Phoebe in on what was going on. As they walked towards the entrance of the multistory building, Paige suddenly gave a short harsh laugh. Phoebe and Piper turned in surprise, and found Paige pointing at "Employee of the Month" parking space, and a familiar red car parked in it. Piper rolled her eyes, but Phoebe had a sudden childish urge to scratch her car keys over the heavily waxed driver side door.

Inside the building they met an unexpected obstacle: the receptionist.

"Good morning! How can I help you!" She said cheerfully and flashed them a full smile.

Piper thought she was going to be physically ill if the woman kept smiling like that for much longer.

"We're here to see Matthew Rowe," she forced her own little smile.

"Do you have an appointment?"

Mentally Piper kicked herself. No of course they didn't.

"No..." Piper said slowly hoping an idea would come to mind. Nothing did.

"Oh I'm sorry then, you'll have to make an appointment," her shiny smile never wavered.

"This is about the kid he ran down yesterday with his car," Paige jumped in, always the diplomat.

Finally, much to Piper's relief, the overly perky smile faded and was replaced by shock.

"Uncle Matty did what?" She gasped.

Uncle? Piper thought in surprise.

"We're here on behalf of one of the investigators," Phoebe chimed in. "We'd like to go up and talk to him."

The receptionist gapped at them, but didn't say anything. The three took that as permission and quickly went to the elevators. Fortunately one of them was already on the ground floor, and the door opened up before the poor girl had time to recover.

When the doors slide close Phoebe smacked herself in the head.

"What floor are we going to?!"

"Three," Paige said easily, pressing the button.

"How do you know?" Phoebe asked, shocked.

"I know how to read a directory," she said in a high-and-mighty voice, as if this was a grand accomplishment.

Piper rolled her eyes as the elevator dinged announcing it had arrived. She stepped off of the elevator promptly followed by a cockily smiling Paige, and an, again, irritated Phoebe.

The three sister followed signs pointing them in the direction of the proper office, then knocked and opened the door without waiting for a response from inside. The man inside jumped in surprise, knocking several papers on the ground.

"Excuse me but who are-" he started, rising to his feet. His desk intercom cut him off.

"Uncle Matty!" Came the flustered voice of the receptionist, "Uncle Matty there are three women who want to talk to you about your accident!"

The man blinked and stared at the intercom, then back at the Halliwell sisters. Suddenly he recognized them, and pressed a button on the intercom.

"Thank you Susan." Releasing the button he sat back down. "How can I help you?"

Instead of answering the question Piper and Paige looked at Phoebe.

"Anything?" Piper asked, her hands casually raised and ready to blow the guy up if he was indeed a demon.

Slowly Phoebe shook her head, "I sense irritation, nothing demonic."

"Ladies I'm a very busy man, if there is something I can do to help you, please be quick."

"Did you ever get called back from Kayla Couter's parents?" Paige asked.

The man frowned. "No I did not. I certainly hope they plan to take responsibility for their daughter's actions."

Piper and Paige were already ignoring him and looking at Phoebe.

"He's telling the truth," she shook her head slowly, confused.

"Well of course I am!" the man turned bright red. "What is this all about! Who are you and wha-"

With a quick flick of her hands Piper froze the room and the raving man along with it.

"Well if he isn't our demon who is?" Piper asked.

Phoebe and Paige shook their heads, they had no more idea than Piper did.

Piper shrugged and unfroze the room.

"-t right do you have to be questioning me!?" He continued his rant, unaware of the brief time stop.

The sisters ignored him and simply walked towards the door of the office.

"Hey! Where are you going?" He demanded.

As the door closed behind them they could hear him push the intercom button and call for security.

Paige quickly pushed the down button on the elevator, and the three of them stepped inside.

When the elevator reached the lobby, two security guards found it empty. Unknown to the confused guards, the three who were inside had already orbed to the parking the lot and were driving away.

After a through searching of the building, the security guards concluded the "three insane women" (the only description they had to go on) had left the building.

_[A/N, Hey folks, hope you enjoyed that. Now just so that you know I do (very happily) read review, here are some replies to some:_

_Triquetra: You seriously must be my most dedicated reader dude!_

_Thinkhard: I meant for the end of chapter one to be confusing :D_

_Silvermoon8705: 11 was just the arbitrary age I picked... no it wasn't an HP reference... lol_

_Rachael: Look! I posted more more more more more!_

_Thanks to: CharmedGirl4, SAMARA, charmedfan and Moose for writing too!]_


	5. Mixed Emotions

**Chapter Five******

**Mixed Emotions**

"So now what?" Phoebe asked, walking through the front door.

Piper followed her silently into the house. She put her keys down, and glanced into the other room. Wyatt's play crib, of course, sat empty on the floor. Piper took some comfort in knowing he was safe, atleast for now.

"They're still down there," Paige said from the front porch, looking down the street at the police surrounded house.

"Well gawking isn't going to help," Piper said firmly, collecting her thoughts. "Lets check the book again."

"But we have! Three times!" Paige said, exasperated, as she came inside and closed the door behind her.

"Do you have a better idea? I'm fresh out," Phoebe crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.

"Well... no," Paige admitted. "To the book!"

The three were half way up the stairs when Piper suddenly realized something.

"Wait! I know someone who might know what is going on!"

Before Phoebe or Paige could ask who, Piper shouted.

"Chris!"

Within a second he orbed in and immediately spoke.

"Mom I hope this is very important because I'm-"

"It is important Chris," she cut in, "What was the demon you mentioned earlier?"

Chris's eyes widened. "I thought you vanquished it?"

"Yeah well, so did I," Piper crossed her arms and stared at Chris impatiently.

"Was it a Phoebus Leach?" Chris asked, his eyes becoming, if possibly, wider.

"A what?" Was the synchronized reply of the sisters.

"Phoebus Leach demon," he repeated. "It has two forms. One looks like a dense smoke cloud, semi transparent, but solid to the touch."

Piper shook her head, "That's not what we vanquished."

"Its other form is-" he was cut off by a shrill growl from ceiling.

All four of them looked up at the demon clinging to the ceiling; leering at them, drooling, and looking altogether menacing.

Chris finished his last thought, "that!" Chris immediately switch to whitelighter mode, "Quick! You're going to need the power of three to vanqui-" again he was cut off by the creature.

It gave a shrill cry and then sprang straight off the ceiling and flew/fell towards Phoebe and Paige.

"Attic!" Phoebe shouted, grabbing Paige's arm.

"Wait!" Chris shouted, still focused on the fact that they needed the power of three.

The creature, having missed its prey, turned it's attention towards Piper and Chris.

Piper jumped back in surprise as the creature moved towards her, and promptly fell backwards off the stairs. Chris caught her before she hit the ground, and orbed before the mid-air lunging creature even got close to them.

"Any ideas?" Phoebe asked as Piper and Chris appeared (Chris promptly pushed Piper into the full upright position).

"Take some of these," Paige said, handing her sisters vanquishing potions she had grabbed off a shelf.

"How do we know if these'll work?" Phoebe asked frantically.

"They won't! It takes the power of three to vanquish it!" Chris insisted.

However, before the sisters could think of a power of three spell, the creature had already appeared at the side of the doorway, scampering along the wall; It was looking ready to kill.

Paige and Phoebe threw their vanquishing potions at the creature, but it easily dodged them, and the potions smashed uselessly on the ground.

"Um... Piper blast it!" Phoebe said, out of weapons and ideas.

Piper flicked her fingers at it, but that didn't do any good. Though her vanquish was right on target, and the creatures should have easily been blown to pieces, it usually proves quite difficult to blow something up when that something orbs.

The sisters' mouths fell open in shock, and Chris took a step back in surprise.

"It orbed!" Phoebe said in an unnaturally high voice. "Evil things don't orb!"

"Where'd it go?" Paige asked, her voice not much calmer than Phoebe's.

The smashing sound gave away the creatures location. The demon didn't seem to know you shouldn't come out of an orb five feet in the air, and three of those five feet shouldn't be over a small table. Gravity had promptly taken over, and caused the demon to fall, smashing into the table.

The three charmed ones and their white lighter spun around at the sound of the crash. The creature stumble around on the ground for a moment before it regained it's balance.

"Gotcha," Piper said triumphantly.

"No!" Phoebe said suddenly, knocking Piper's hands to the side as she prepared to blow the creature up. Piper's shot went wide, and shattered a mirror on the wall instead of hitting the creature.

"What are you doing?!" Chris demanded. "Vanquish it! Now!"

Piper was beyond confused. Her sister had said moments before to "blast it" now she had just interfered with a clean shot.

"What?" Piper asked, closing her raised hands and staring at her sister in surprise, virtually ignoring the demon.

Phoebe was staring intently at the demon. "The confusion, the scattered feelings..." She said slowly.

"Just blow it up!" Chris ordered.

Piper and Paige, ignoring Chris, exchanged a confused look behind Phoebe's head, and then the two of them looked back at the demon. They were both surprised to see the creature didn't look nearly as menacing as it had seconds before. It was crouched on the ground, it kept repeating the same stumbling movement. Three tentative, almost forced steps forward, then scampering back a few feet as if something had scared it. The demon went through the same twisted dance three times before Phoebe spoke.

"Its confused... Scared... Angry... But determined to do... something..." Phoebe said taking slow, small steps towards the demon. The demon stopped its scampering as Phoebe approached it. The two made eye contact, and held it for several seconds before the creature let out a piercing shrieking noise and vanished with an orb.

Piper and Paige both clasped their hands over their ears to try to block out the shriek, Chris seemed indifferent to it, and Phoebe brought her hands up to her forehead, and fell to the ground as her knees suddenly buckled beneath her.

While Paige frantically turned her head this way and that, expecting to see the demon orb back in somewhere else in the room, Piper rushed to her sister's side.

"Hey! Hey, you okay?" she asked.

Phoebe didn't respond. She simple sat there on the floor her hands on her forehead, with a wide eyed, almost enlightened, expression on her face.

"Yoo-hoo? Anyone there?" Piper asked, waving a hand in front of her sister's face.

"Ssh!" Phoebe snapped, her expression not changing. "I'm trying to sort it out before it fades too much."

Piper shot Paige, who had finally stopped looking around like an excited monkey, a quizzical look. Paige shrugged her shoulders, and looked equally confused.

"Its not evil..." Phoebe said, slowly coming to her feet. "But it's not quite good either."

Chris, upon hearing this, threw his hands up in the air in disgust and stomped over to the book of shadows, muttering to himself, and pretending the sisters weren't even in the room.

Piper shot Chris a brief dirty look, and then focused her attention on Phoebe again.

"What exactly do you mean?" Paige asked cautiously.

"I was getting two sets of emotions from it, a dominant evil set, and a small good set," she bit her lip, "it felt like the good was fighting for dominance."

"Well if there is any good in that thing, it won't win the fight," Chris spoke from behind the book stand. "I'm surprised you felt anything, most good is destroyed in the host within seconds of possession. Within an hour there isn't any left."

"Chris, what exactly is that thing?" Piper asked.

"Phobius Leach." He said simply.

"Which would be...?" Paige said sarcastically.

"Have a look for yourself," Chris took a step back from the book, and gestured at the page it was opened to.

Curiously, the three sisters gathered around the book.

Unlike most entries in the book, the picture of the demon was rather poor. Usually the demons were portrayed by beautiful, detailed illustrations; this looked like someone smeared their cigarette ashes on the upper half of the page and called it art. The description of the demon, however, more than made up for the shoddy picture.

**_The Phobius Leach_**

_Born from the spiritual remains of those   
__who died in moments of great fear or anger.   
The Phobius Leach can lay dormant for as   
long as a thousand years, slowly growing   
in strength and size until it becomes strong  
enough to possess a host's body, and   
then in turn uses the host to destroy the   
greatest source of good the Leach can find._

_The Leach targets young, easily frightened   
children, and quickly destroys their soul.   
Then it slowly breaks down the host's   
body into something foul and unnatural._

_The Leach requires a power of three spell to destroy.   
The host can not be saved._

Phoebe shook her head slowly. "I felt good in it... So that can't be it."

"That is it," Chris said firmly.

"Did you feel any good in the last one?" Piper asked curiously, "Or when you asked me to blow this one up a second ago?"

"No... and no..." Phoebe bit her lip again. "I didn't feel anything other than anger and hate until it... orbed." Phoebe's face lit up, "how did it do that!?"

"Could it have possessed a white lighter?" Paige asked.

"Leo!" Piper shouted. "Have any white lighters gone missing?" She asked the moment he appeared.   
"Not that I know of," he said slowly, looking confused.

"Go check."

"Okay..." He orbed out again.

"How does this connect to the family down the street?" Paige asked suddenly.

"Are we sure it does?"

"The dead bodies implied yes."

"I felt that thing yesterday, where was it?"

"Hiding in the trash can?"

Phoebe and Piper both gave Paige a dirty look for the last comment, but before either of them could say anything Leo had returned.

"No white lighters are missing. Now what is going on?"

None of the sisters heard his question, instead they were giving each other flabbergasted looks and thinking the same thoughts. If it wasn't a white lighter, what was it the leach had possessed, and how had it orbed? How were they suppose to vanquish a demon that could easily orb away before they could perform a power of three spell? And what innocent would be killed when they did vanquish it?

"None of this is right..." Chris whispered, staring past the sisters at nothing in particular.

All heads snapped towards Chris.

"Chris...Honey..." Piper said slowly. "What is right?"

Chris was blinking rapidly and slowly moving his mouth, as if trying to sort out his thoughts.

"This isn't what happened... Last time... Something changed history..." He was biting his lip so hard that he managed to draw blood.

"What is happening this time?" Asked Leo, still not aware of what had happened that day or the day before.

"Shush Leo. What did happen last time?" Phoebe gently asked, moving closer to Chris.

Chris blinked suddenly, and jerked his head back, as if snapping out of some sort of trance. "You know I can't tell you anything!" He snapped.

"Well... Actually..." Piper said slowly. "If something changed history, than there is no reason we shouldn't know what happened last time."

"Yeah!" Paige jumped in, "its not like it'll change anything for us to know what could have happened."

Chris slowly digested this suggestion. They were right... If it had changed... What could be the harm? But what if he let something slip...

"Chris, history could've changed for the worse." Piper said, trying from a new angle. "If you don't tell us so we can try to fix it, something horrible might happen."

"Youvanquisheditfourtimeslasttime!" He said in a rush, almost forcing himself to speak.

"Come again?" Paige said lamely.

"Last time, you vanquished the demon four times." Chris received mild looks of surprise. "The first three times you just blew it up, but the third time you actually caught a glimpse of its spectral form, so you know how to vanquish it the fourth time."

"Okay, so we're only up to two right now... So?" Paige said dully.

"You should have vanquished two of them yesterday," Chris said firmly. "And then the third revealing one today."

"So what did you do yesterday that delayed the attack?" Piper asked.

"Me?! I didn't do anything!" Chris said, stepping back defensively.

"You might have done something very minor that caused something bigger to happen, the classic butterfly effect." Leo said sagely. "Now will someone please tell me what is going on!"

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**_[A/N, And now for some lovely review replies :D_**__

_Charmed Addict: Well, now you know what type of demon it is O.o_

_Rachael: You make me post too fast! _

_Prue21: Whacks head Oh crud! You're right! The timeline is screwed up O.o Oh well... lol_

_Slayer3: Hey Slayer! You're a new reviewer! I don't remember conning you into reading this... welcome to my fic :D_

**_Thanks guys! More reviews please!!!]_**


	6. What Lies Beneath

**_[A/N, Sorry for the delay updating! I'm also sorry that this is the shortest chapter... and the one I consider the worst... part of the reason for the delay... I wanted to make it as good as possible before I posted... Please review it honestly!]_**

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**Chapter Six******

**What Lies Beneath**

The Frank Williams Memorial Cemetery, like any other cemetery, looked especially creepy at night. Aside from a stray dog that was wandering aimlessly among the tombstones, the graveyard appeared empty.

Now the dog wasn't looking for anything in particular, just patrolling what it considered it's turf. It sniffed here, and sniffed there, checking to see if any other animal had been through the area. At one tombstone it stopped, and began sniffing the ground curiously.

This particular tombstone was fairly old, never visited, and slightly shaded from the moonlight by a young oak tree. The inscription on the stone was for a man whom had died forty years earlier. Six feet below the tombstone, was a coffin. The coffin had not aged well during its years underground, and seemed on the verge of collapsing. Through the cracks and holes in the coffin a large amount of dirt had made its way in; in fact there were several buckets worth of dirt within the coffin. However dirt, the occasional bug, and the forty year old remains of the coffin's occupant were not the only thing six feet under. The coffin had a new occupant, an occupant that had arrived only there minutes before. An occupant that was slowly regaining consciousness.

Vague thoughts wandered across her mind. Screaming at her parents... riding her bike... a smoke cloud... going to bed... going to bed... going to bed... no other memory came after going to bed... She closed her eyes tighter, her head was killing her, that car accident must have done more damage to her than the paramedics thought.

How long have I been asleep? She wondered. She didn't really care enough to roll over and check her alarm clock. Her mother would wake her up when she had to get up. She took a deep breath to relax herself. However, instead of relaxing, she choked on the stale, dusty air and started coughing. She forced her eyes open, and quickly realized she wasn't in her bedroom. Wherever she was, it was small, faintly lit, and the ceiling was no more than six inches from her face. Panicked, she looked around. To her right was the cracked and rotted wall of the coffin, not that she knew it was a coffin. She looked to her left. She saw the source of the light, a small grayish cloud that was faintly glowing, and seemed to have enveloped her left arm. However, when she screamed it wasn't because she recognized the grayish cloud as whatever had knocked her off her bike. No, she screamed because the skeletal remains of the coffin's first occupant were lying next to her. The second she made eye-contact, atleast as much as one can make with a skeleton, she realized exactly where she was.

It sufficed to say Kayla Couter was in a full panic. Her heart was racing, and she could barely breath. In the beginning she could barely breath because of her panic, but now that she had hyperventilated for a full thirty seconds, the already thin air was getting thinner. Aside from simply being encased in a coffin with its former occupant, and aside from being six feet underground, one of the things adding to her panic was the gray cloud surrounding her left arm. Had the cloud simply remained encased around her arm she might have been able to calm down. In fact, she was starting to accept the fact that she couldn't move her hand at all, most likely because of the cloud creature. Solid clouds and paralyzing clouds, were all things Kayla could accept under the circumstances. However, a talking cloud was too much.

If the skeleton in the grave had ears, it would have heard nothing more than some screeching noises resembling fingernails on a chalk board. However, to Kayla Couter, it sounded like a deep, hissing voice.

"Sssslow your breeeathing..." It hissed, speaking directly into her mind.

Chances are its tone was meant to be calming and reassuring. However, most people don't respond well to a talking rains cloud; Kayla was no exception. She let out a piercing scream, but quickly silenced herself with a sharp intake of breath when a series of cracks formed on the roof of the coffin and a small amount of dirt trickled through it.

"Sssslow your breeeathing..." It repeated, then added, "Or you will kill youuuurssssself and be forgotteeeeen...."

"Slow your breathing" no long really applied, Kayla was holding her breath and staring at the low ceiling, fearing it would collapse in on her any second.

"What are you?" She asked softly, fearing to speak any louder.

"I am a Weeeeeeaaaavvaaaabriiiiiiiissssssssaaaaaaaa" It hissed, as if she was suppose to know that that was.

Slowly it began creeping up her arm.

Kayla quickly flew into panic again as she lost all feeling in her arm as the creature moved up it.

"Slow your breathing!" It commanded, and flew away from her arm and straight into her chest.

Kayla's reaction was equivalent to a person who just got punched in the stomach. However, in Kayla's situation, suddenly lurching into the fetal position meant cracking her head on the roof of the coffin. She would have liked to have grabbed her head in pain, or perhaps protected her face from stream of dirt that was now falling on her left cheek right below her eye; however, she couldn't move her arms, or for that matter any other part of her body.

"Stop your resisting," it hissed in her mind.

It was a rather useless order. She couldn't move. She could barely breath. She had a disturbing mental image of a gray cloud inside her chest, crushing her lungs (what she didn't know was how accurate that mental image really was).

"Fighting will do you no good," it spoke firmly and clearly in her mind.

Kayla attempted to reply to the creature, but found that she couldn't speak. Her face was as numb as the rest of her body. Still panicked she thought, "How the hell am I going to get out of here?!"

"You will not leave her with out my assistance," it responded to her thought.

Had she been able to, her half closed eyes would have bugged out. Had it just spoke in her head?!

"Yes."

"How did we get here?" She thought at it.

"You brought us here."

Funny... She didn't remember going off somewhere to get herself buried alive...

"You were not buried," demons rarely caught sarcasm, this one was no exception.

"Then how did we get here?" She asked it again, hoping to get a real answer.

"You brought us here." This was going no where fast. "You must stop fighting me."

"What?"

"You must stop fighting me if you want to avenge the murder of your parents."

Again her eyes would have shot out of her head.

"The murder?! What?! What happen!?"

Suddenly images flashed through her mind. Her parents brutally mutilated bodies strewn across the floor. The three women who had been at the car accident. One of the women flicking her hands and suddenly a vase blowing up.

But why would anyone want to murder her parents? Why would those three women murder them? They had been so helpful after the accident... What was going on here? Did she just blow up that vase?... How?? How did she wake up to find herself six feet underground???

"They are demons," the creature said reassuringly. "They are trying to kill you."

Though it sounded sincere, Kayla wasn't convinced. Something in the back of her mind was telling her it was lying. The same sort of something that tells you to run when a stranger is offering you candy, or that tells you maybe you shouldn't put all your weight on that one tree branch. Fortunately the creature couldn't read the back of her mind, and didn't detect the hesitation.

"How did we get here?" Kayla thought at it.

"I used your power to bring us here. We are safe here."

"My power?"

The demon remained silent for a moment. "One of the demons gave you some of his powers. An accident I'm sure. He would never help the human he is trying to kill." Though the demon didn't know it, it was only partially lying in this statement. Of course Leo wasn't trying to kill Kayla (not that Kayla knew that). However, he did accidentally give Kayla some powers. Through some combination of the demon's leaching presence, and Leo's attempt to only half-heal, Kayla had somehow absorbed some slight form of whitelighter powers.

Of course Kayla didn't know that. Nor did the demon know that for a fact. It had assumed that by luck it had possessed a half-white lighter. However when the girl was confused by the mention of her power...

"What power did it give me?" She thought, even though she had a good idea what that power was.

"The power of orbing... The moving from one place to another instantly."

"How do I do that?" She wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible.

"You can't without my help." Kayla could almost feel it laughing as it spoke.

"Will you help me?" She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

"You must stop resisting my presence first... And then help me destroy the Charmed ones..."

"Who?"

"The Char-the ones who... murdered... your parents."

It was lying. She knew it. Maybe she could agree to help it long enough to get out of the coffin...

"I will not be tricked." It hissed.

Kayla gasped as the great weight was suddenly lifted off her chest. The gray cloud moved over face and hovered there a moment.

"If you choossssse death I can not helllllp you..." It hissed, and then moved straight through the roof of the coffin.

"Hey! How do I get out of her?!" She shrieked angrily at the cloud, and without thinking smacked the roof of the coffin with her hand.

The many years of rot which had already damaged the coffin, and the damage it had received in the last few minutes were too much for the old coffin.

Kayla scream was stifled as the roof of the coffin split virtually in half, and dirt began pouring into the small space. All thoughts in her mind, whether they were subconscious disbelief of the cloud, or conscious thoughts of using and losing the cloud, all of them were replaced with one thing: Fear. That was simply the perfect environment for a Phoebus Leach.

Dirt wasn't the only thing which promptly fell from the roof. The leach shot down to its unsuspecting victim, and instantly gained possession of her body and power.

The dirt poured in faster as the space which had been occupied by a living body seconds before, was suddenly vacated in a splash of blue light.

On the surface the stray dog, which had been sniffing the grave, gave a sharp "yip!" and jumped back in surprise as the ground suddenly sank down sharply. The dog cautiously approached the grave and sniffed it tentatively. Whatever had been causing what it smelled had mysteriously vanished, so the dog trotted carelessly away.   
****

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**_[A/N, -Sigh- I honestly feel this is the worse chapter of the fanfic... But I swear they get really good after this!_**

**__**

**_Review Replies:_**__

_Prue21: Well this isn't the demon that kills Piper, but now you do know how it can Orb ;)_

_Rusty: Rusty... If you're life depended on me updating you would have flat lined looooooong ago... lol _

_charmed lover: Heh, when I was editing this chapter, I discovered two chapters later that I had just been reading my own fic... Kinda sad on my part I guess, lol._

_Marysmary: Thanks for the review!_

**_Thanks guys! More reviews please!!!]_**


	7. Demon Snare

**Chapter Seven******

**Demon Snare**

After the sisters had explained the situation to a baffled Leo, he agreed whole heartedly with Chris. This creature had to be vanquished. Leo did listen to and agree with Phoebe's complaint that it wasn't a wholly evil demon, however Chris's argument that a demon which could take possession of a person's body was a serious threat Wyatt... Leo couldn't ignore that.

However, it wasn't Leo or Chris's decision to make. It was the sister's. If even one of the sisters didn't agree, the demon wasn't going to be vanquished, and in fact...

"We need a Power of Three spell to vanquish it, and I won't do it as long as I know there is some trapped good trying to get out of that demon!" Phoebe said stubbornly after her sisters had spent the better part of an hour arguing with her as the three moved around the house setting up crystals for their demonic alarm system.

"Well, then what exactly do you think we should do?" Piper asked as she placed a crystal a few inches from the front door.

"Maybe we could catch it?" Phoebe suggested eagerly.

"And do what with it?"

"Get a priest to perform an exorcism?" Paige suggested, bemusedly picturing a cackling demon with its head spinning around on its neck.

Phoebe gave Paige a disgusted look and stormed out of the room carrying a crystal.

Piper rolled her eyes as Paige looked at her innocently and asked "What?"

"She might actually have some with her catching it idea..." Piper said thoughtfully.

"What good would that do?"

"Well if she isn't willing to vanquish it till she's atleast had a chance to try to free whatever good is in it..." Piper said slowly. "We mind as well catch it... Otherwise Phoebe isn't going to be willing to even consider the Power of Three spell."

Paige started slowly nodding, then she handed Piper the demon-detecting crystal she was holding. "I'll go charge some more Pyrite Crystals."

Piper nodded with agreement, but Paige didn't see because she had already orbed.

# # # #

"Do you really think this is going to work?" Phoebe asked, laying on her side on the couch, and, with some effort, sipping from a coffee mug.

"It won't," Chris said angrily, pacing across the floor. "You should be out hunting the demon instead of waiting for it to come to you!"

"It'll probably work," Paige said, completely ignoring Chris as she sat on the floor leaning against the couch.

"And if not we'll try something else," Piper added, cutting off Chris as he opened his mouth.

"Oh Chris would you stop pacing," Phoebe snapped as she attempted to sip the last bit of coffee out of her cup without sitting up.

"How can I not pace," he snapped, as he absentmindedly stopped pacing. "This could be the demon that finally gets to Wyatt and you are lounging around doing nothing."

"Chris... Wyatt is safe with Leo and the other elders, as long as he's up there I don't think we have to worry about the demon getting him." Piper said soothingly.

"He can't stay up there forever! Sooner than later Leo will have to bring him back down," Chris resumed pacing, and silently wishing Leo hadn't gone back up there.

"And by that time we'll probably have vanquished your Louse," Paige said with a tone of finality.

"Leach!" Snapped Chris, "Leach! How do you plan to vanquish it if you don't know what it's call—!"

He was cut off by the demon alarm sounding.

"Incoming!" Paige shouted as she jumped to her feet.

Phoebe was quick to follow Paige, but made sure to place her coffee mug securely on the table before doing anything else.

"Where is it?" Chris asked, though his expression showed his usual calm, his voice cracked as he spoke, betraying his fear.

Piper heard the clicking of nails across the hallway floor. Paige heard it too.

"It sounds like a dog," Paige whispered, though she wasn't sure she needed to.

"How do we plan on getting it upstairs again?" Piper asked.

"How about we forget about getting it upstairs and just vanquish it?" Chris suggested sarcastically.

Phoebe, still dedicated to attempting to save the good in the creature, glared at Chris and her sisters, made a noise of disgust, and then promptly proceeded to run into the hallway.

"Phoebe! Don't!" Piper shouted.

"Here demon, demon, demon, demon!" Phoebe shouted, using the same tone baseball players use when they mock the batter.

Piper slapped her forehead in disgust.

This was not the way to deal with a demon.

Though it had seemed like a good idea at the time, Phoebe was very quickly regretting her rash actions. The demon, taken aback, paused briefly as one of its prey jumped before it, apparently ready to die. However, the demon's surprise was quickly replaced with the shear pleasure of the knowledge that it was about to reach part of its goal. The death of one of the sisters was enough to break the power of three. With one gone, the others wouldn't be hard to destroy.

If the demonic face was capable of grinning it would have been. Even though the demon's face remained stoic, Phoebe could still senses its emotions. One thing she sensed quite strongly was a very dominant evil and a sadistic pleasure.

"Um..." Phoebe mumbled as the demon moved stealthily across the floor towards her. As it shifted its weight, preparing to lunge Phoebe shouted "Chris!"

The white lighter instantly appeared at her side, and both of them disappeared just as the creature gave a sharp growl and lunged at the spot where Phoebe was merely a second before.

The demon landed softly on the ground, and turned its head left and right, checking to make sure its prey hadn't appeared nearby. It cocked its head to the left, then right, sniffed the air, then it orbed.

"Piper! Paige!" Phoebe shouted from the attic.

"Go, go, go," Piper snapped grabbing Paige's arm.

As the two orbed into the attic, Chris and Phoebe promptly orbed out the demon lunged at them again. Phoebe's blatant refusals to do anything that might hurt the demon had turned the situation into a cat and mouse game. Chris and Phoebe being the unfortunate mouse.

Paige flinched as the demon landed on a table, knocking several items off of it. It wasn't so much the smashing sound the falling objects that made her flinch, but the fact that if the demon had landed five feet to the left it would have, not only missed the table, but landed squarely in the center of the partially completed Pyrite crystal circle.

Piper was thinking along the same lines as Paige, what was the best way to force the demon to move without risking vanquishing it or getting one of them killed. She knew she couldn't blow the demon up... But she could....

"Piper! No!" Phoebe shrieked as her sister raised her hands, and then for the first time in a very long time, she actually saw Piper miss a stationary target. Or had she missed her real target?

Indeed, when Piper flicked her hands, she wasn't aiming for the demon, but the table. The explosion was enough to knock the few remaining items on the table, and the demon, off it.

The demon landed heavily on the ground, not near enough to the cage to be caught, but atleast it was on the floor. The demon scampered away, and hid behind a cardboard box. All three sisters noticed one thing: When it moved it only used three legs. The forth one, its left forearm, was being held tightly against its body. It was injured.

Paige held out of hands, "Box!" She commanded. Instantly the box the demon was behind disappeared and reappeared in Paige's arms. She was hoping it was empty, or maybe had some old clothes in it. Unfortunately the box was full to the brim with old, very heavy, magazines.

Paige swore loudly and tried to regain her balance as the demon gave one of its piercing shrieks. Like any cornered animal it knew when it was beat, and it gave into its instinctive last ditch effort: Attack and try to take one of your attackers down with you. Paige was the closest target and she was also preoccupied with the heavy box. So it lunged.

Paige instantly reacted, not only did she orb, but she threw the box away from her and at the demon. The box connected with the demons skull with a loud cracking noise. The demon, knocked to the ground, skidded across the floor, and landed a mere foot away from the cage. Half stunned the demon struggled to its feet.

Piper noted it was only standing on three legs, its injured one still clutched to its chest. Well... that had worked once, why not again? Piper flicked her hands and the box of magazines blew up. The box wasn't very close to the demon, so the explosion didn't injure it in anyway, but the demon still scampered back, unknowingly moving into the center of the cage.

"Now!" Paige and Piper shouted together as Phoebe lunged forward and slammed the finally Pyrite crystal into its position on the floor. Instantly the cage formed around the demon, trapping it inside. However the demon didn't realize what had happened, it only knew one of the Charmed Ones had suddenly lunged towards it, so it jumped backwards. Backwards into the magical force field that had been formed by the crystals. The force field promptly shocked the demon and it fell heavily to the ground.

Though the demon was trapped, the sisters took a surprised step back. As the demon hit the ground a gray cloud came straight out of the body and hovered in the air for a moment. Though it had no recognizable face or other features, Piper, Paige and Phoebe were sure it was looking around, surveying the room. It flew forward into the walls of the cage, and promptly bounced off. It flew around the cage in a complete circle, occasionally flying into the walls of the cage, checking for weaknesses and finding none. After finishing its complete circle it did a small loop in the air and dove straight down.

The sisters gasped. They had been focusing on the demon which had been pictured in the Book of Shadows, not on the body that was laying unconscious in the cage. The demon had flown straight down, and re-entered the limp body that rolled slightly as the cloud passed into it. The girl lay on the ground, unconscious, and not looking well at all. Her clothes were torn and muddy; the left sleeve of her shirt was virtually gone, what hadn't been torn off appeared to have been burned off, and the skin below was marked with a severe burn. Her face was badly scratched, her lip was bleeding, and her right eye was showing signs of a forming black eye. All the injuries received from the brawl which had ended seconds before, plus the injuries she had sustained in the car crash made her appear in a very sad shape.

"Oh my god," Phoebe whispered, staring at the girl. "I think we know where the presence at the car accident was."

**- - - - - - - - - - **

**_[A/N, Dun dun dun! If you want me to update some more, you gotta review!]_**


	8. Remaining Innocents

**Chapter Eight******

**Remaining Innocents******

"Car accident?" Chris snapped suddenly. "What car accident?" He demanded.

"Its nothing," Phoebe said quickly, waving him off. "I vote we get—"

Chris was not going to be ignored. Not about this.

"Damn it Phoebe!" He shouted, coming forward and grabbing both her shoulders. "What car accident!" He yelled giving her a shake.

Chris's actions and the burning look in his eyes, caused Phoebe to freeze. It even took her a moment to realize how painful his grip on her shoulders was.

"Chris..." Piper said carefully, putting a gentle hand on one of her son's. "There was a minor car accident yesterday," as she spoke she peeled Chris's hand off Phoebe's shoulder.

Chris stopped paying attention to Phoebe, and was instead staring at Piper. Phoebe took the opportunity to wiggle out of her nephews grip.

"This girl got hit by a car yesterday in front of the house," Piper said simply.

Chris shook his head. "No she didn't!" He snapped.

The sisters stared.

"Yes Chris... She did..." Paige confirmed, while Phoebe nodded slowly.

Chris stared at the unconscious girl, then at the sisters, shaking his head.

"I've got to go," he said suddenly. Before anyone could say anything he orbed.

The sisters all exchanged a confused look.

"That was weird..." Paige said slowly.

"Yeah..." Piper stared at the spot where Chris was.

"Back to the matter at hand!" Phoebe said quickly, gesturing at crystal cage. "I vote we get Leo to heal her," she said firmly.

"So that it can go all demonic and try to kill us again?" Paige asked sarcastically.

"_It_," Phoebe said in a grating voice, "is a she, and _she_, is an innocent."

"Possessed by a demon, yes we know all this," Piper said exasperated. "We aren't going to learn anything new by talking in circles," Piper bit her lip. "The book can't tell us any more, and she can't tell us anything while she's unconscious."

Phoebe nodded enthusiastically, but Paige looked hesitant.

"Oh alright," she said finally.

"Leo!" Phoebe quickly shouted, before either of her sisters could change their minds.

"What's up?" Leo asked as he appeared, his back to the cage.

The sisters simply pointed and Leo turned around.

"Oh my. What happened?"

"Well we found the demon," Piper said matter-of-factly.

"Her?" Leo asked, recognizing her as the girl from the accident.

"Yeah... The whole body possessing thing seems to be a bit deceptive," Piper said as blandly as she would when commenting on the weather.

"We want you to wake her up," Phoebe got straight to the point.

Leo looked incredulous. "Did you vanquish the demon?"

"Technically... No," Paige said simply.

"But we're working on it," Phoebe cut in, wanting to convince Leo to help her.

Leo glanced around the room.

"Where's Chris?"

"Out," Phoebe said simply. "Ready?" She gestured at the cage.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" He asked uneasily.

"No," was the synchronized reply.

Leo bit his lip and glanced at the unconscious girl. "Just wake her up right?"

"You can heal that nasty burn mark if you—" Phoebe stopped when her sister's glared at her. "Just waking her up sounds good."

Leo, still hesitant, moved towards the cage. Paige promptly followed him, and knelt by one of the crystals. Leo gave Paige a slight nod, signaling her to remove one of the Pyrite crystals from the circle. The second the shield dropped, Leo stepped forward and began using his healing powers. Suddenly he stopped.

"Um, Leo, she doesn't look much better..." Piper said slowly.

"I felt something... Odd... It doesn't feel like I'm healing properly..."

"Leo, come on! You've never done it wrong before!" Phoebe snapped.

Leo glanced at Piper and Paige and then placed his hands over the girl's head. After a few moments the girl groaned. Leo quickly stepped back, and Paige replaced the Pyrite crystal.

Her face gave a slightly twitch, and her head rolled very slightly to the side. Then she opened and closed her mouth as if trying to say something, right before slowly opening her eyes. Her vision was blurred, and she felt groggy, but she quickly concluded it wasn't her eyes blurring her surroundings, but something else. The wooden rafters above her had a slight gray aura around them. She turned her head to the right, and she found herself laying on a worn rug which, aside from being old and grimy, looked quite in focus till about three feet in front of her face where it was suddenly blurred by a semi transparent wall. Where was she? She rolled her head to the left, and made eye contact with a slightly blurred Piper.

"Hi there," Piper said easily, crouched down right next to the wall of the Pyrite cage.

Kayla Couter didn't need clear vision, or a clear head, to fully recognize the person who had murdered her parents.

Now of course Piper really hadn't excepted the semiconscious girl to just suddenly start screaming, and when one is crouched down in the way Piper was, one is rarely in balance. So at almost the same moment as Piper fell hard on her rear end, the girl made a futile attempt to sit up and crab walk away from Piper. The attempt was futile due to the sudden collapse of her left arm as she attempted to support herself on it. Had the shock of seeing her parent's murder not been enough, falling painfully on her left arm only to find it burned so severely that it was a wonder it was still attached (in fact, medically speaking she should have been able to feel her fingers, but medical logic rarely applies in the magical world), was enough to make anyone scream bloody murder.

Piper quickly scrambled to her feet, and began brushing dust off her rear end. "Now what?" She hissed to her sisters. She felt the need to whisper even though their guest was far too preoccupied with her arm to notice anything else at that moment.

Phoebe, knowing this was her pet project, and therefore feeling responsible, stepped forward. "Hey, we aren't going to hurt you," she said softly, kneeling down next to the cage.

"Get the hell away from me!" The girl snapped, as she successfully scrambled to her feet while her right arm was still occupied with clutching her left arm.

"Kayla, we want to help you," Phoebe said softly, slowly standing up.

She wasn't about to believe that. She was just slowly shaking her head and backing way. She backed away right into the walls of the cage. The small shock from the walls caused her to jump and turn her back on the sisters in her surprise.

However, instead of screaming deliriously again, she simply stared at the force field, then spoke calmly.

"Are you going to kill me too?" She asked, not looking at anyone. She was clearly terrified, but trying not to show it.

Kill her too? The sisters were confused. Of course they didn't know what lies the demon had told the girl, nor did they even know it was intelligent enough to communicate with its host, however they did know they hadn't killed anything, vanquished yes, but not really killed, atleast not recently.

"We don't want to hurt you," Phoebe said softly.

"You killed my parents," her voice went up sharply, and she spun back around to face her attackers.

Of course the three of them knew the girl had, however unintentionally and unconsciously, had killed her own parents, but this seemed like an inappropriate time to inform her of that little fact.

"We didn't kill anyone," Piper said slowly, keeping her voice and calm and even as possible. "We try to help people, we want to hel-"

"You did it!" Her voice moving above and beyond the point of hysterical, and, using her good arm, pointed accusingly at Piper, her left arm was still clutched against her chest. "You blew them up! You blew them up!"

Piper was taken aback by this sudden accusation. Was this perhaps the demon talking? She had blown up quite a few demons. Was this some sort of teenaged demon seeking revenge?

"I saw their bodies! Bloodied and mangled, and then you blew them up!" She shrieked.

Suddenly Phoebe understood. The demon must have been feeding her incomplete images and memories. It must have been just like when Phoebe experienced a premonitions; they were just series of snap shots of things to come. The demon must of shown her the bodies of her murdered parents, and then an image of Piper blowing something up.

"We didn't murder anyone, Kayla," Phoebe said softly, wishing she would be struck by some sort of inspirational thoughts on how best to explain that "Hey kid, we're witches in a never ending battle of good vs. evil and you happen to be possessed by one of those evil demons we are trying to get rid of."

"Yes you did," she hissed. "You murdered them. They never had a chance." She began visibly shaking with anger. "I'll kill you!!" She yelled and lunged forward only to be quickly knocked to the ground by the semi transparent walls of the cage.

The three sisters had taken an unintentional step back as the girl lunged forward, Piper had raised her hands defensively, and Paige had come within a hair of orbing.

On the floor, Kayla suddenly curled up into the fetal position, and started muttering to no one in particular. "What are you doing to me?"

Phoebe glanced at her sisters with a confused look, only to receive one twice back.

"You said you wanted to help me... What are you doing to me? ... This isn't helping... I don't know why we are here... Watch what?" In a sudden jerky motion, as if it wasn't entirely her own choice to do so, she popped out of the fetal position, and laid flat her back. Then, in a similar jerking motion, her right hand snapped to a position a few inches above the burns on her left arm, her fingers extended and spread.

"Oh my," Leo muttered.

The sisters jumped, they had forgotten Leo was still in the room. Neither Piper, Phoebe nor Paige found it comforting to see surprised look on Leo's face. They promptly found out why Leo looked so surprised.

Paige couldn't help but gasp when a bright gold light began emitting from Kayla's hand. The bright gold light glowed briefly, and when it faded away, everyone in the room saw Kayla's fully healed left arm.

"They could have helped you but they didn't," Kayla said, her voice raspier than it had been a moment ago. "They plan to kill you," her expression was blank and emotionless, but her voice was full of hatred. The sisters were quite sure Kayla's was no longer the dominant mind. "Kill them first!" She shrieked and lunged at the walls of the pyrite cage.

"She shouldn't have any white lighter powers," Leo said calmly, looking at the sisters as Kayla lunged and bounced off the walls of the cage several more times. "I'm going to go see what I can find out." He orbed before anyone replied.

"Okay, what are we going to do here exactly?" Paige asked, keeping her voice low (not that Kayla could have heard anything, she was too busy throwing herself against the cage walls and swearing loudly).

"Well obviously the demon can't fully possess her for some reason," Phoebe said mater-of-factly. "So that means there is probably someway to vanquish the demon without killing an innocent."

"Another innocent," Piper corrected softly, biting her lip.

"Huh?" Paige asked obliviously.

"Whatever we thought we vanquished before..." Phoebe said slowly.

"Was just whatever body the demon had possessed," Paige caught on and finished the thought. "But that means we killed an innocent?"

"No." Phoebe said firmly. "It wasn't innocent any more, the demon had fully destroyed it's host's soul. There wasn't anything in that creature other than evil."

"But you can sense some good here?" Piper asked, staring at Kayla.

"Yes." Phoebe said firmly.

"Then we have to figure out how to help her."

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!" Kayla shrieked, oblivious to the conversation between the sisters.

**- - - - - - - - - - **

**_[A/N, #Cue Cheesy "Dun dun dun!" Music# What will they do? Will evil triumph and kill an innocent right before the Charmed Ones? Find out! Next chapter!.... Yeah... okay... so please review!]_**


	9. What’s In A Name?

**_[A/N. I just want to say first that this is my absolute favorite chapter. I throughly enjoyed both writing it, and editting it (just because I got to read through it over and over). I hope you enjoy it too!]_**

**Chapter Nine******

**What's In A Name?**

While the sisters conferred on what the next logical step to take, they were also forced to watched as Kayla slowly became consumed by the demon again. Every time she lunged at, and was thrown back by, the cage walls, her form seemed to become less and less teenaged human, and more drooling demon. Her constant shrieking death threats had lost all meaning, and instead were now shrill cries of anger coming from the creature. Mentally, Kayla had entered a dream like state, she was conscious, but barely aware of her surroundings, and no longer in control of her body. She felt a sharp pain every few seconds, but was unaware of the cause.

"What are we doing?" She thought, her mind slowly forming the question.

"We are seeking vengeance," the demon said simply.

"Oh," Kayla couldn't think of anything else to say. She felt tired. It was strange to feel tried in an almost dream.

What Kayla didn't know was the demon was slowly crushing her. Not physically, but spiritually.

She had resisted for a long time, but the demon had nearly fully convinced her that Charmed Ones were the enemy, and one she must help to destroy. However in believing this, she was only allowing the demon to destroy herself.

Phoebe flinched painfully.

"What?" Paige asked observing the reaction.

"It's getting stronger," panic was creeping into her voice. "The demon, its smothering her." She flinched again. "We need to do something. Fast!"

"What can we do?" Paige asked, catching some of Phoebe's panic.

"Can we talk to her at all?" Piper asked, remaining calm.

"Do you think she can hear us in that thing?" Paige asked doubtfully as the demonic creature continued throwing itself pointlessly against the walls of the cage.

"We can try!" Phoebe responded defiantly.

She strode resolutely towards the cage and shouted straight in the demon's face.

"Kayla!" The demon ignored her and continued, if anything more enthusiastically, to throw itself at her. "Kayla Counter you listen to me! We aren't the bad guys!"

# # # #

The mention of your own name can sometimes give you almost unnatural powers. If you've ever stood in a crowded, noisy room, and heard someone mention your name from across the room you can understand that. Somehow you are always unconscious listening intently for any mention of your name, perhaps eagerly awaiting to be made the center of attention, or perhaps fearing being spoke of behind your back.

Kayla certainly wasn't in a crowded room, nor on the opposite side of the room from Phoebe, but even trapped inside her own body, it didn't make a difference.

"Kayla... Kayla Counter..." She heard, almost as a soft echo.

Like anyone who hears their name from afar, Kayla forced her sluggish mind to focus. She was almost surprised how much effort it seemed to take her to simply listen.

"Kayla you ne..... ight the demon... aren't t... ing to hur... ou... Do you hear m... We aren't the ba... guys!" She heard the echoing voice say, but what did it mean? Who was that? She concentrated harder, she wanted to know who that was... she needed to know.

# # # #

The demon abruptly stopped lunging at the cage walls, and instead sat crouched on the floor, growling and leering.

"It's working!" Phoebe said enthusiastically, but she looked drained.

Piper stepped in to help.

"Kayla, can you hear me? I need you to listen to me okay sweetie?" She used the light tone she normally used to talk to Wyatt. Not cutesy, but motherly. "There is an evil being trying to control you. You need to fight it. Do you understand me? You-need-to-fight-it." She said clearly.

# # # #

"They are the evil..." she thought, but then realized with a shock that she didn't believe that, nor did she mean to think that. Something else made her think that. Something... controlling.

"Do not fight me..." Hissed the voice of the creature.

"What are they talking about?" She asked firmly, her mind clearing.

"They seek to kill me...you..."

"Why?"

"Because they are murderers..." it hissed. "You saw how they slashed your parents..."

Something in the back of Kayla's mind clicked.

"I thought you said they blew my parents up..." She said slowly.

The voice remained silent.

It's silence was more terrifying that anything it could have said. She now believed what the outside voices were saying. There was a creature possessing her, forcing her to do things she didn't want to do, and probably didn't even know she was doing. Suddenly a horrifying though occurred. What if her parents had been killed by... No... She didn't even want to think that... She had to fight the creature... She had to stop it...

"Get out of my head!" She shouted at it.

# # # #

"Come on Kayla," Phoebe muttered, crouching down next to the cage and making eye-contact with the now visibly hesitant demon.

The demon growled, rotating its head left, then right, visibly trembling while doing so. It pawed at the ground with its front foot, like an animal waiting to charge. Piper flinched as its claws left several deep groves in the floor boards.

The demon wanted to launch itself at the sisters. Phoebes seemed so vulnerable crouched down like that. It wanted to kill... It just couldn't quite bring itself to do it... But they were the enemy... Weren't they? No... Yes... Maybe... They... Were!

With a shrill cry the creature lunged forward again, and was of course knocked back. However, the shock of the sudden evil feelings from the demon knocked Phoebe off balance even more than the physical attack did. Phoebe fell hard backwards, but instead of landing on the ground, bottom and ego bruised, she landed on Piper's foot, knocking her over too. Phoebe had been expecting to hit the ground, and had instantly prepared herself to break her fall. However, the ground usually doesn't cry out in pain and rip itself out from under you. Because of Piper pulling her foot away, Phoebe was thrown out of balance a second time, and wildly shot her legs out to slow the fall, what she didn't expect was for one of her feet to connect with one of the crystals in the perimeter of the cage.

It only took the demon a second or two to realize it was no longer confined, however it didn't waste its time with lunging, it knew it would easily be captured again. Instead it gave a cry of rage and began swiping the crystals across the room.

By the time Phoebe was back on her feet, the crystals were on all sides of the room, and one had been knocked as far away as the attic door and could be heard tumbling down the stairs.

Paige rushed to the doorway and shouted "Crystal!" causing it to instantly appear in her hand. One down four to go.

"Piper! Blow something up near it!" Phoebe shouted and Piper promptly complied.

"Crystals!" Paige shouted, spotting two more of the scattered stones.

The demon, which had easily dodged Piper's blast, had been watching Phoebe and Piper menacingly, but now it seemed to realize Paige was the real threat. If she could recollect the pyrite crystals and form the cage again...

Before Phoebe and Piper even had a chance to process what the demon had just done, the creature had spun around on its haunches and lunged at Paige, whose back was turned to the demon as she searched for the remaining crystals.

At the last second Piper shouted "Paige!"

She turned around only to be promptly knocked over by the demon. The two rolled over several times across the attic floor. When they stopped Paige was pinned on her back, the demon was kneeling on her chest, and the talons of its left hand were dug very painfully into her shoulder. It gave a shrill cry and raised its right hand to strike. Paige knew well enough to orb, but when she did so she didn't expect the demon to orb with her. So there the scene stood, frozen for a moment, Phoebe and Piper standing mere feet away from their sister who was pinned, apparently helplessly, against the ground.

Even though it appeared to be frozen, it wasn't.

Paige felt safe, only for a moment, she quickly realized Piper hadn't frozen the room, the demon was simply not striking. It was breathing sharply, its hand, raised above its head, was visibly trembling. It wanted to attack, but it couldn't.

Paige was daring enough to shift her eyes to glance at her sisters. Piper had her hands raised, ready attack if she absolutely had to. Phoebe mouthed the words "Don't move" at Paige, and prayed that her sister understood.

Slowly the demon lowered its hand. Paige tried not to flinch as it brought the claw within inches of her face. The demon slowly removed it gaze from Paige, and focused on its claw. It stared blankly at it for a moment, as if it didn't recognize it own appendage. It closed the clawed hand into a fist, and slowly opened it again, as if to confirm indeed it was attached. In a sudden violent motion it brought the hand down to the floor, barely an inch from Paige's ear, and then flipped itself sideways off of Paige.

Paige didn't need to be given a better opportunity. She promptly scrambled to her feet while her right arm hung limply at her side as her shoulder freely bleeding. The demon curled itself up in the fetal position, its back to the sisters. Right before the sisters' eyes the demon morphed back into the human form of Kayla Counter.

Trembling and hugging herself, from the floor she whispered two simple words.

"Help me..."

**- - - - - - - - - - **

**_[A/N Some review replies!]_**

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**_Linda: Thanks for the reply! The BoS has been wrong before... hasn't it?_**

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**_Maili-chan: Isn't any guy who has HTRDWGN as a plate a little crazy? Hehehe..._**


	10. Suppressed Memories

**Chapter Ten******

**Suppressed Memories**

"Well I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with them," Paige said, holding a pyrite crystal in one hand, and fingering with her other, a freshly healed, one. "But I think you managed to short circuit it or something, Phoebe."

"So you're saying the crystals won't hold a charge..." Piper said slowly.

"Making us down a defensive weapon," Paige said, finishing the thought.

Phoebe, though she was aware of the conversation her sisters were having, she wasn't listening. Instead she was looking into the living room where Leo and their "guest" were.

Kayla was sitting hunched over on the couch, hugging herself tightly, and staring intently at the floor. Though Phoebe could see Leo was saying something to the stricken girl, she couldn't hear what he was saying, nor did whatever he was saying seem to have any effect on the girl.

"Yoo-hoo, Phoebe."

"Huh? What?" Phoebe jumped as Paige's passed a hand up and down in front of her sister's face.

"Can-you-sense-anything-demonic," Piper said, emphasizing every syllable, making it quite clear that this wasn't the first time she had asked.

"Well..." She bit her lip and wrinkled her brow in conversation. "It's pretty much the reverse of what it was before. I can sense lots of dominant good, but a nagging evil in the background."

"But how do we get rid of the evil?" Paige asked, "I mean without..."

"Without?" Piper inquired, but Phoebe understood.

"Without destroying the good. I wish I knew."

The sisters stood in silence for a moment, looking into the living room, the soft mumble of Leo's voice the only thing audible.

Finally Phoebe broke the silence.

"I think you should talk to her." She said, staring at Paige.

"What? Why me?" She was taken aback by the sudden suggestion.

"I think she could relate to you more easily," Phoebe said, attempting to keep her tone that of complete innocence.

"And how do you figure that exactly?" Paige crossed her arms and gave her sister a suspicious look.

"Well, you're younger for one," she said, visibly struggling to come up with reasons. "You were in high school more recently than the two of us."

"Hey, I don't know what logic you are using here, but keep me out of it," Piper said. She had a feeling she knew where Phoebe was going with this, and she didn't like it.

Phoebe gave her sister a scathing look and then continued.

"So you're the youngest, and you can relate to her orbing power, and, you were, um..." Phoebe was running out of reasons, but Paige had realized the main one.

"And I was about her age when my parents were killed in the car accident." Paige said bluntly.

Phoebe bit her lip and waited for an outburst of some kind of from Paige, but it didn't come. Instead, Paige glanced into the living room, suddenly feeling much more sympathetic to the girl whom, she suddenly realized, she been thinking of as just another demonic problem.

"There is one subtle difference Phoebe," she said softly, then turned her head sharply to give Phoebe an uncharacteristically intense stare. "My parents didn't die because of me or my powers." She returned her gaze back to Kayla.

There was a short moment of silence that, for Phoebe atleast, felt like an eternity. Just when Phoebe was about to apologize and say that Paige, of course, didn't have to talk to Kayla, and that it was merely a suggestion, Paige spoke again.

"You're right though," she said softly. "I might be able to get through to her." She watched as Leo continued rambling, probably about nothing of consequence, and as Kayla continued ignoring him.

Without another word, Paige strode resolutely into the living room. Leo at first didn't notice her, and Kayla didn't seem to be aware of anything other than that spot on the floor.

"The balance of the Universe is really a very complicated thing," Leo said lightly, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Kayla, almost as if he expected her to suddenly attack him and he needed to be ready.

Paige cleared her throat loudly.

Leo's eyes flicked from Kayla to Paige and back again, only looking long enough to recognize which sister had enter.

"Leo, I think I've got it from here."

"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow without looking.

"Yeah, so..." she waved her hands in a shooing motion.

Leo stared at Paige, and then glanced behind her at Phoebe and Piper who promptly began signaling from the Hall. "Right..." He said, standing up.

Paige sat down in Leo's pre-warmed seat, and stared at Kayla. She attempted to make some sort of eye contact, but the only thing she could really stare at was the part in the girl's hair.

"So... How you feeling?"

No response. Paige felt dumb for asking such a question. She too probably would have ignored anyone who asked her that under the given circumstances.

"You certainly look alot better." Paige mentally kicked herself again. Yeah, that was a brilliant thing to say too... "You aren't a crazed acid drooling monster right at this moment! That's great!" It was worse than when people say "Gee! You've lost a lot of weight!" As if you were and over weight cow and needed to lose some in the first place.

Kayla continued not responding, as if not hearing. She didn't seem to be blinking either, not that Paige could see enough of her face to know for sure.

"Look, Kayla, I know what you are going through." She said softly. "I went through almost the exact same thing when I wasn't much older than you are."

Paige came to the conclusion that she was going to have to just keep talking, and just hope Kayla was hearing.

"I was only in high school when my parents died in a car accident," she said slowly. "I use to think it was my fault, but eventually I learned it wasn't." Paige noticed that Kayla's eyes had gotten distinctly wider. The first movement she had seen from the girl, even if it was so small. "I eventually found out that my magic saved me from dying in the crash."

Suddenly Kayla's head snapped up, and she made full on eye contact with Paige.

Paige was so startled by this sudden movement that she almost orbed.

"Why are you telling me this?" Kayla whispered. Her voice dry and harsh, most likely because she hadn't spoken (or in fact moved) for such an extended period.

"Because I understand what you are going through," Paige said, her tone some where between sympathy and wanting to say "Duh!"

Her face flushed red, "What, exactly do you think I'm going through?" She said softly, almost hissing.

This was an odd reaction, Paige hadn't been expecting anything like this. "Well... When my parents died, I felt lost... and I blamed myself when I shouldn't have... Kayla?"

She wasn't paying attention anymore, as Paige had been speaking Kayla's lower lip began trembling, soon her whole body was shaking, and she kept turning her head sharply as if she meant to look at everything in the room except Paige.

Suddenly Paige realized where she had erred. She had been trying to comfort the girl over the sudden and unnatural death of her parents. However, it suddenly became quite clear that Kayla was either unaware of her parents untimely demise, or she had been consciously telling herself it wasn't true. Now that Paige had spoken of her own parents death... Kayla was now painfully aware of the murder. The memories started as brief flashes of what had happened, then they suddenly broke through the unconscious barrier she had erected in her mind, and she was suddenly mentally reliving exactly what had been done.

What she had done.

Her mother had torn away the protective blankets. Kayla attacked. Brutally slashing at her attacker, making sure it could not attack her as it probably would have. There was a noise from behind the door. She lunged through it. Another enemy stood at the base of jagged floor. Kayla scampered down what she humanly knew as a staircase, but in her possessed form, knew only as a place to make a running start. The male creature's eyes grew wide in terror a moment before she lunged and dragged it's unconscious body across the floor. As she tore at the body with her unsheathed claws, her vision began to fade. The demon had fully taken over her mind by then, and she couldn't remember anything more.

"Kayla?" Paige's voice broke through her horrified thoughts. "Kayla? Can you hear—"

"I killed them," she whispered.

"No!" Paige said quickly. "You didn't do anything wrong Kayla, you weren't in contro—"

"Yes I was!" she snapped. "I could have stopped it but I felt so... so... angry." As she spoke her breathing became faster, and her face grew steadily redder.

"Kayla, you have to listen to me. You didn't do anything."

"Don't blame it on some freaky demon!" She snapped, suddenly on her feet. "God Boy already said all that crap! Not controlling my actions! Supernatural leaches! I know what I could have controlled! I didn't try to stop myself! I—"

"Want to kill you."

These last words were not spoken aloud. They were spoken directly into Kayla's mind.

Paige instantly saw the change in Kayla. She didn't know what was wrong, but she knew something had changed. Paige had never seen anyone go from turning a brighter and brighter red in a rage, to suddenly turning deathly pale. That is unless they then promptly began throwing up afterwards, but Paige was quite sure that wasn't the case.

"Kayla, I want you to listen to me," Paige said slowly standing up.

"Shut up! Shut up!" Kayla yelled, holding her head in her hands, frantically looking around the room.

Paige was correct when she assumed Kayla wasn't talking to her.

"She is your enemy!" The cold voice snarled in her head. "She and her sisters will kill you if you let them!"

"That's not true!"

"They don't know how to stop me, they'll kill you when they realize it!"

"I'll stop you!" Kayla shouted.

"No, you won't."

Suddenly Kayla found she couldn't move. She couldn't even breath. It seemed the demon had decided to prove to Kayla the power it held over her.

Kayla had a strange, disconnected feeling, as the room moved around her, or to be more exact, she moved through the room. She had no control over her body, but was forced to watch as she suddenly lunged over the coffee table straight at Paige.

**_[A/N Some review replies!]_**

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**_sugarbox: Hmm... she might be savable... I dunno... heheh_**


	11. Get Out

**Chapter Eleven******

**Get Out**

When Leo looked over at Phoebe and Piper, the two of them began frantically signaling to him.

"Come here Leo," Piper whispered, mostly for the sake of accurately mouthing the words.

Leo gave a hesitant look at Paige and Kayla, but then stood up and walked over.

"What?" He asked quietly upon arrival.

"We have an idea and it won't work with you sitting there." Phoebe said quickly, and started looking past Leo to see if Paige was having the instant effect on Kayla she'd hoped for.

"What are you guys thinking?"

"That maybe Paige can through to her by relating to her parent's death," Piper said simply, also looking beyond Leo and at Paige.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Leo's tone clearly said that he didn't.

"I don't see why not," Piper said, but Leo's concern concerned her. "Why do you ask?"

"Well we can't guarantee that Kayla remembers-" he was cut off as Chris orbed in and immediately started talking.

"None of this ever happened." He said quickly.

"Didn't we already discuss this?" Piper asked dully.

"What color was the car?"

"Huh?" Chris's question didn't exactly answer Pipers.

"The car accident. What color was the car?"

"Red. Chris, what are you getting at?" Phoebe answered.

"The other day when I was looking for that demon," as he spoke he pointed at Kayla.

Phoebe opened her mouth to tell off Chris ("She's not a demon Chris! She's an innocent!"), but Piper gave her a silencing look.

"I crossed the street, and some idiot in a red car started blaring his horn because the little old lady in front of him made him miss the light. I think that if I wasn't there, he wouldn't have missed the light, and then he wouldn't have been there," he pointed to the front of the house. "So she wouldn't have been there," he pointed dramatically into the living room.

"Chris there are four different red cars on this street alone, what makes you think—"

"Did you see the license plate?" Phoebe said, ignoring Piper.

"Um..." Chris rolled his eyes into his head thinking. "I think it was one of those vanity plates... Hotdog or something."

The sisters exchanged a significant look.

Chris caught the small movement. "See! I told you! None of this happened before!"

"Chris, some of us don't know what happens twenty years in the future, so do you think you could fill us in?" Phoebe snapped, she was harsher than she meant to be, but it got Chris to the point.

"History doesn't show Kayla being here, atleast not for long."

"Chriiis..."

"Alright, alright. History shows one Phobius Leach showed up, and Piper blew it up."

"Just like it happened the other day?"  
  
"Exactly like it happened. And shortly after the first one showed up, a second one appeared, again the same way. But that's where the similarities end." Chris paused dramatically and earned three dirty looks. "Piper blew up the second one exactly the same way again. A week later a third one came, only this time when Piper tried to blow it up, it ducked and dodged as if it knew what technique you were going to use. You finally blew it up, and this was when the three of you caught a view of the leach in its ghastly form, and were able to identify it as what it was, and you realized it was the same demon that kept coming back."

"So what happened differently this time?" Phoebe asked slowly.

"The car accident happened. That didn't happen before." Chris blushed slightly. "I changed the timeline by crossing the street."

"Okay Chris, so the timeline's been changed a little, but then why didn't we just keep vanquishing." Piper said matter-of-factly.

"There wasn't the car crash before. Which meant Kayla was riding her bike by the house when the demon possessed her, she fell off her bike, then got back up confused and rode away."

"But this time a car hit her... and we all went outside to help..." Phoebe spoke slowly as the pieces fell into place.

"Then Leo started healing Kayla..." Piper now realized what Chris was getting at too.

"And through the Leach Kayla absorbed some sort of white lighter power." Chris continued.

"And that's why she can orb, and that's why the Leach hasn't consumed her." Leo finished simply.

Phoebe snapped her fingers. "Every time Kayla orbs, the Leach seems to weaken. It can't seem to use the white lighter power with out letting some of the good surface! This could be the key weakness we need to defeat it!"

"Good timing," Piper said quickly and rushed into the other room.

Phoebe glanced in just in time to see Kayla lunge at Paige.

Paige orbed a split second before Kayla would have hit her, and reappeared standing next to her sisters. Kayla landed on the couch, crouched on all fours. Kayla turned her head towards the sisters, her teeth gritted and eyes narrowed in fury.

"Paige! Quick! Orb!" Phoebe said frantically.

"I just did!" Paige said in her usual "duh!" voice.

"She means orb her," Piper gestured at Kayla. "We have a plan, just orb her!"

Paige opened and closed her mouth a few times, but then promptly orbed as Kayla gave a sharp snarl from the couch. Instantly Paige appeared behind the couch and out of Kayla's range of sight. However, when Paige reached down to grab Kayla's shoulder, the prey became the predator.

Though she gave no sign that she realized Paige had appeared behind her, it became quite apparent when she whipped around on the couch, grabbed Paige's extended arm, and flung Paige straight over the couch and hard onto the coffee table. Paige didn't have time to even gasp before she smashed, back first, into the table. Shattered glass and bits of wood flew everywhere as the table collapsed and everything that had rested on top of it smashed. Paige was down for the count, and Kayla, slowly morphing into the demon form of her possessor, turned her attention to the remaining sisters.

One was down, only two left to go.

One was dangerous... it had destroyed her last mortal body. The other however, would keep the dangerous one from attacking. Long enough for her to attack.

The demon, formerly known as Kayla, began stalking on all fours towards Piper and Phoebe. Phoebe kept glancing between the approaching demon, and the unconscious Paige. Piper raised her hands defensively. Predictably Phoebe threw her arm across Piper's, and snapped.

"No! Don't!"

Piper gave Phoebe a dirty look, and her sister returned it. This moment of sibling rivalry was what the demon was expecting, and hoping for. In a split second the demon had launched itself into the air straight at Piper. What it hadn't expected was outside interference, namely from Chris.

Instead of tackling Piper, the demon was intercepted mid-flight by Chris. He managed to smash his shoulder into the attacking demon's ribs, and knock it out of the air. The demon hit the ground and rolled over a couple times before it was back on all fours, but Chris didn't stop there. He tackled the demon again, and orbed on contact. He reappeared again, sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, with his left arm wrapped around Kayla's neck, and his right arm holding hers behind her back in an arm lock. Kayla, almost unaware of her strange position on Chris's lap, was white as a sheet, breathing hard, and looking perfectly human.

Kayla suddenly lurched out of Chris's arms (probably tearing some shoulder muscles in the process), and was on her feet in an instant, backing away from Chris. She was frantically glancing around the room, looking at Chris, who promptly scrambled to his own feet, at Phoebe and Piper who were looking stunned, and at Leo, who was hovering his hands over a still unconscious Paige.

Kayla kept backing away, breathing rapidly.

What had she done? Had it been her? No it couldn't have been... or could it? She watched it... at first atleast... She couldn't stop it... If she couldn't stop it who could? And why did her shoulder hurt so damn much!

As all these thoughts raced through her mind, or was it really her mind any more?

Kayla looked at each of the three sisters in turn. "I... I'm not in control," She whispered, barely loud enough to be heard. "It's going to come back," the images of her parents ravaged bodies flashed through her mind, and her gaze landed upon Paige and the broken coffee table. One way or another, it had to be stopped.

"You will kill the charmed ones or they will kill you," the voice in her head snarled.

Kayla clapped her hands on hear head. "No I won't!" She shrieked aloud.

"Kayla," Piper said loudly and clearly. "Kayla you have to listen to me sweetie, I want you to-"

"Shut up! Shut up!" Kayla wasn't talking to Piper.

"They will vanquish both of us!"

"Let them vanquish us!" Kayla fell to her knees, still holding her head in her hands. "I'm not listening to you!"

Paige (who had now rejoined her sisters), Piper and Phoebe all exchanged glances.

Chris stumbled over, a slight limp in his left leg, and forced a piece of paper into Piper's hands. It didn't take two glances to know what it was.

"You wrote a power of three spell?"

"Someone had to," he muttered, just as Kayla cried out in pain.

"Get out! Get out!" She shrieked, completely collapsing to the ground, covering her face with her hands. She forced her head up and stared straight at the sisters.

"Kill it!" She screamed. "Kill me! Just stop it! Just stop it!" She screamed in pain again and squeezed her head tighter.

The Piper bit her lip and looked at Phoebe. Phoebe, stared at Kayla, then closed her eyes and gave a resigning nod.

Piper held the piece of paper out at arms length, and the three began reciting.

"Deep within this soul resides,

"A demon, dark and foul hides," As they spoke Kayla gave another cry of pain.

"To destroy this demonic, sucking, leach," A strange black aura suddenly formed around Kayla. It looked like the demon was trying to escape.

"Upon the Power of Three we do beseech," But the demon was too late.

There was a blinding flash of light, and an explosion that caused the whole room to shake. The sisters turned their heads away from the flash, and the instant silence was broken by one of the few glass objects left in the room that hadn't been smashed already, falling to the floor.

Piper, Paige and Phoebe, looked at the spot where Kayla had sat moments before. None of them were prepared for what they saw.

**_[A/N Some review replies!]_**

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**_Rusty: Dude.. you are like my most dedicated fan... I feel so loved. lol_**


	12. Many Choices

**Chapter Twelve******

**Many Choices**

The blinding light faded as quickly as it had appeared, and the mystical smoke that was often associated with vanquishes faded with it. The scene that lay before them was so shocking that the sisters took a synchronized step back in surprise.

After a normal vanquish one might expect a charred crater in the carpet, or if the demon was particularly messy, some demon parts scattered around the room.

However, something more shocking that any dismembered demon parts scattered around the room could have been was Kayla, lying on her side, curled up on the ground, visibly uninjured.

"Uh..." Paige said, as articulate as ever.

"Did it...work?" Piper asked slowly.

Phoebe, more ready for actions than words, threw her right arm out, almost randomly, and succeed in landing it square on Chris's chest. She took a good grip on his shirt, and yanked him in front of her.

"Why didn't it work?" She demanded.

"I don't... who said it didn't work?" He stuttered.

Phoebe yanked Chris around so that he was facing Kayla instead of herself.

"That says quite a bit!"

"You rhymed 'leach' with 'beseech'?" Paige asked sarcastically.

"Exactly!" Phoebe snapped, "That's lamer than some of the things Paige's come up with!"

"Hey!"

"Um... guys, hate to interrupt but..." Piper nodded at Kayla who had just groaned and rolled over onto her back, here eyes closed tightly.

The sisters stared in silence for a moment.

"You know what..." Phoebe said slowly, "I'm not sensing anything demonic." She took a few cautions steps towards Kayla, her head cocked to the side as if she was straining to hear something far away. "Leo come here a second."

Leo, glanced at Paige and Piper and then walked over.

"Are you sure you can't sense anything?" He asked, as he kneeled down.

"Not a dirty thought in her teenaged mind," she said quickly, "Now heal! Chop chop!" She clapped her hands together.

Leo gave Piper and Paige another hesitant look, then extend his hands out over Kayla. One hand over her head, and one over her heart.

He just sat there for a moment, then he closed his hands and stood back up.

"Um, Leo... I've had the crap kicked out of me by Demons enough times to know what you healing looks like," Phoebe said, slightly accusingly. "And that wasn't healing."

"There's nothing to heal," he said softly.

"She unconscious!" Phoebe cried.

"She's sleeping," he said even softer, as if that would compensate for Phoebe's out burst.

"What?" Phoebe asked, returning her voice to a moderate tone.

"She's sleeping," he repeated, grabbing onto a very confused Phoebe's shoulder and guiding her away from Kayla.

"What are we doing?" Piper asked ask the two came back over (neither she nor Paige had heard Leo).  
"Ssh!" Phoebe snapped. "She's sleeping!"

"Huh?" Paige and Piper asked together.

"I have a feeling she hasn't slept in days," Leo theorized softly. "The demon was probably keeping her constantly awake, I think the vanquish worked."

"Well what are we suppose to do now?" Paige asked.

"Wait."

Kayla mentally groaned. She could detect bright light behind her closed eyelids. That meant it was morning, and morning meant she had to get up. She rolled over, she'd just check what time it was, and if it wasn't too late she'd sleep a little longer. Admittedly if she slept any longer she'd probably have more of these strange dreams... She blinked her eyes open, and immediately realized not only was this not her room, but that her "dream" was a bit more real and nightmarish than she thought it had been.

Paige, who was sitting across from Kayla, cocked her head to the side so that it was at the same angle as Kayla's.

"Hey there," Paige said from her lopsided position.

Kayla didn't say anything, she just blinked a couple times, as if she was hoping the next time she opened them she would see something different. She sat up, pushing a blanket that Piper had laid across her off her shoulder. She swung her legs off of the couch, and her foot caught one of the few remaining shards of coffee table that the sisters hadn't picked up yet. Kayla looked from the broken remains to Paige. It hadn't been a dream. Every part of it was real... Every part... But now she felt different... Not necessarily better... She probably would never feel "better," but a good sort of different.

"What happened?" She whispered.

Paige opened her mouth and then closed it again. She didn't know how much Kayla remembered.

"Is it gone?" She asked.

Paige nearly smiled, but knew better. "It's gone."

Kayla slowly nodded, and drew her knees up to her chest. It was over. She couldn't really blame herself either... She thought she could fight it, but it was quite clear she couldn't have. Was she weak? No, she told herself. It was just too strong... Or was it...?

Kayla didn't notice when Phoebe and Piper (carrying Wyatt), entered the room. She was busy rubbing her shoulder and wondering why it hurt so badly.

"Hi sweetie," Piper said, sitting down, bouncing Wyatt on her lap while discretely turning off the baby monitor they had put in the room so that they'd know when Kayla had woken up.

Kayla didn't respond, instead she stared at her shoulder and kept rubbing it. In fact she was the only one who didn't jump in surprise when her hand lit up with trademark golden glow which usually meant a white lighter was healing something.

Kayla blinked a couple times and then experimentally moved her arm around. It didn't hurt.

"Well this is new," Piper said, biting her lip.

Kayla turned and looked at Piper as if she had just realized she was sitting there.

"Why isn't it all gone?" She whispered, sounding thoroughly terrified.

"Good question..." Paige muttered.

"Leo!" Piper and Phoebe said together causing him to instantly orb in, promptly followed by the appearance of Chris.

"What?" Leo asked in surprise.

"Why can she still heal?" Piper asked, jerking her head towards Kayla.

Leo turned to Kayla and looking mildly surprised. Very, very, mildly.

"I was afraid of that," he said simply.

Kayla went slightly pale.

"Why were you even thinking of that?" Piper asked curiously.

"Well when the leach orbed or healed itself, it had to do it through Kayla," he pointed at Kayla. Kayla looked at his finger with a slight look of fear in her eyes. "Which, I think, means it had to give her that power. When you vanquished it, you vanquished only the evil, and since whitelighter powers clearly aren't—"

"I got to keep them," Kayla finished softly, staring off into space. She then suddenly realized she had interrupted a person she had recently called (and with good reason) God Boy, and she jerked her head to look at him in slight fear. "Sorry... Lord...?"

Paige gave a snort of laughter.

"I liked 'God Boy' better," Piper said laughing.

Much to Kayla's relief, Leo didn't look angry or even annoyed. If anything he looked slightly embarrassed, which Kayla found very strange.

Kayla stared at her hands, opening and closing them slowly. Everything was different... Everything she knew, or thought she knew, was different. The world was really full of magic, like the fantasy novels she had read when she was young... She now possessed some of that magic... And her parents were...

"What am I going to do now?" She looked up from her hands. Her voice cracked as she spoke, and the sisters could see tears coming to her eyes.

"Well, that's really up to you now," Leo said. He glanced at the sisters, silently asking permission to continue, and they nodded.

Through working with Daryl and his police connections, and the Elders and their cosmic connections, Leo and the sisters had managed to set up a couple possible scenarios for Kayla.

Paige had contacted Daryl and told him (for the most part) what had happened. He said it would take some effort, but he was pretty sure he'd be able to get the demon attack reported as a wild animal attack, and if Kayla could throw in some witness testimony describing an animal breaking in, it wouldn't hurt. Daryl had given them the contact information for Kayla's uncle who lived in Los Angeles. Her uncle was currently working with the police in the investigation, and though no one had asked him, everyone was quite sure he'd take Kayla in if they asked.

"Now, you have a couple choices to make Kayla," Leo said patiently. The conversation had taken much longer than he thought it would have. He had to stop at one point when Kayla totally broke down crying, and needed several minutes, and words of comfort from the sisters, before she could compose herself.

"If you want us to—" Leo began.

"And only if you want us to," Phoebe cut in. "We aren't going to pressure you one way or another."

Leo gave Phoebe a silencing look, then continued.

"If you want us to, we can have your memory wiped. So that you don't remember any of this happening."

There was a pause.

"We can also..." Leo said slowly, suddenly realizing there was a second issue. "Bind your powers, making them dormant. So you won't know that you have them, and you won't accidentally use them."

Everyone sat in silence watching Kayla, who was systematically chewing on every part of her lower lip, waiting for her to respond. She stared at her hands a moment, opening and closing her hands into loss fists, thinking.

"I don't want to forget anything," she said slowly. "But binding..." She said, more to herself than anyone else.

Suddenly Paige had an idea. She leaned over and muttered something in Leo's ear.

Leo looked thoughtful for a moment, and then started slowly nodding.

"I'll be right back," he said, standing and orbing without explaining.

Phoebe, Piper and Chris all gave Paige a confused look, while Kayla was oblivious to the whole exchange.

Within seconds Leo was back looking quite delighted.

"We have one more option for you Kayla," he said smiling slightly.

Kayla looked up with a blank expression.

"If you want to keep both your memory, and your powers... Then if you want, we can arrange to have you enrolled in Magic School."

Kayla's eyebrows shot up, and she just stared at Leo for a moment.

"I'm in a freaking Harry Potter book!" She said in disgust, throwing up her hands up in the air.

Paige burst out laughing while Phoebe and Piper both rolled their eyes.

"You're actually serious?" She said suddenly, realizing that he was. And why not? She asked herself. She'd seen enough already... how hard was it to believe they had some sort of magic school?

Leo nodded in answer to Kayla's, mostly rhetorical, question.

Kayla sat quietly for a moment, absorbing everything.

"Can... Can I try it?" She asked hesitantly. "Like maybe try... Magic School... and if not you guys could..." She taped her forehead and made a face.

Leo, Chris and the sisters all nodded together.

"Alright..." She said slowly. Then again, with more confidence. "Alright, lets do it."

**- - - - - - - - - - **

**_A/N Okay, I couldn't resist. Anyone who knows me knows that all my fanfics must have a Harry Potter reference at some point! Hehe. Now I know this seems like a pretty conclusional chapter, but there is one more. The last one is mostly a wrap up, and because I really wanted a fic with 13 chapters, hehe._**

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**_rusty: yeah I guess I did make you get out of bed huh... lol_**


	13. Final Thanks

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Final Thanks**

It was only a few days before life in the Halliwell manor returned to its normal routine. Normal being relative of course.

After Kayla had made final her decision, there were still some arrangements that had to be made for her. The sisters, with Leo and Chris's assistance, quickly made those arrangements.

Paige went to magic school to talk to Gideon and find out exactly what they had to do to get Kayla properly enrolled in classes and more specifically what classes to enroll her in.

"We don't normally handle the training of Whitelighters here," Gideon said slowly. "Now of course we know Kayla isn't one, but the same sort of training may be in order." Gideon paused, stroking his chin in deep thought. "I just may," he said slowly "have to instruct Kayla personally in some aspects of her training."

Meanwhile Phoebe and Chris had gone off together to Kayla's uncle's house to speak to him. In the end it turned out explaining the situation to him wasn't the hardest part. Getting through the front door was.

"Mr. Couter, we're here to talk to you about your brother and sister-in-laws sudden... death." Phoebe said after the man reluctantly opened the door.

"Will you people just leave me alone!" Kayla's uncle yelled. "You damn reports can't just leave people alone!"

Phoebe stared is surprised silence for a moment before she could respond. "No! No we aren't with the media, we have...information... about Kayla that we need to talk to you—"

"Oh what, are you also some lunatic physic who's been talking to my brother from the beyond the grave? I already had two of you people stop by yesterday! Go away damn it!" With that he slammed the door.

Phoebe reached up her hand to knock again, but Chris, as usual, lost his patience.

"We don't have time for this..." He said grabbing Phoebe's hand and, quickly glancing around, orbed the two of them into the house before Phoebe could object.

Kayla's uncle heard something behind him, and turned around just in time to miss the shimmering light of Phoebe and Chris's orb. Instead he just saw the two of them standing there in front of his closed front door. He quickly snatched a cordless phone off the wall and started dialing. "I'm calling the cops!"

Chris waved an annoyed hand and the phone instantly flew out of Mr. Couter's hand.

"What the—How did you—?" He sputtered.

"As I said, we're here to talk to you about Kayla." Phoebe said simply.

Unfortunately for Piper and Leo, Phoebe and Chris had a comparatively easier job explaining to Kayla's uncle what happened, than Piper and Leo had convincing Daryl to play along.

"Look, I totally understand the need for secrecy. And I know you understand that we have to get Kayla to the station somehow before we can turn custody over to her Uncle, but we aren't going to do it like this!" Daryl snapped.

Piper and Leo's idea was to have Daryl find an "unconscious" Kayla in the bushes around her house. Kayla would be covered in the magical equivalent of stage blood so that it would like, indeed, she had been attacked by some sort of wild dog and then simply dragged out of the house into the bushes.

Daryl's complaint was, however, quite valid.

"I had officers tear this house apart searching for Kayla! I'm not going to just 'accidentally' find her in bushes that I had my guys search twice!"

"Well do you have a better idea?" Piper asked annoyed.

Daryl opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it again looking annoyed.

Eventually they agreed that Daryl would arrange for an extra patrol car to drive down the street every now and then looking for the "wild animal" that had supposedly attacked Kayla's parents. Then, when she saw the approaching patrol car, Kayla would crawl out of one of the neighbor's bushes looking thoroughly bloodied up and acting disoriented.

Even if Kayla thought all this was a little over dramatic, the headline in the morning paper presented the story the three sisters wanted the public to know. A story totally free of magic.

**Daughter Of Couple Attacked By Dogs Found!**

_SAN FRANSICO-After a rather long investigation into what has finally been proven to be a vicious dog attack, Kayla Couter, daughter of deceased Frank and Linda Couter, was found yesterday morning less than a block from her house. After receiving medical attention for the severe bite wounds on her left arm and right thigh, Kayla was able to explain to investigators what really happened._

_"I had gone outside around 10 o'clock because I thought I heard something on the side of the house." Kayla, age 15 told investigators. "I started walking around the side of the house when I heard this growling behind me. I turned around just in time for one of these three huge black dogs to jump on me and sink its teeth into my arm." Ms. Couter gestured at her thoroughly bandaged arm. "I can't remember if I screamed, I was just so shocked by the whole thing. Then a second dog jumped on me and bit my leg and started dragging me down the street. I saw the other two dogs run through the front door of the house... I... I had accidentally left it open..." Ms. Counter needed to be given a moment to compose herself before she could finish telling investigators what had happened._

_"My arm was bleeding really bad, and I guess I passed out at some point while the dog was dragging me... The next thing I remember is waking up in the bushes, and crawling out just in time to see Officer Moore's patrol car." Officer Moore, who was unavailable for a statement, is the lucky officer who found Ms. Counter after being assigned to patrol her street._

_The authorities would like to warn the public that these three vicious dogs are still on the loose. If you recognize these dogs, DO NOT APPROACH THEM, call the authorities immediately._

Next to the story was a picture of a thoroughly bandaged Kayla, her uncle with his arm around his arm around his niece, and Officer Moore.

It only took a few days for the story to completely disappear from any local newspapers, replaced by frivolous fashion stories. Kayla moved in with her uncle, and, with some assistance from Gideon, the sisters taught Kayla how to orb as far as magic school.

There had been hugs all around when the sisters finally left Kayla's new home. Kayla's uncle was still looking rather warily at Phoebe and Chris, but he was finally starting to accept what had happened to his brother and sister-in-law. He knew the story in the newspaper was false, but what he didn't know was that the story Phoebe and Chris had told him was also largely false. The two of them had managed to explain that it had really been a demon that attacked without telling him that, at the time, the demon was Kayla. He didn't need to know that. Would he ever find out? Well that would be up to Kayla.

Kayla hugged Paige the longest, and whispered something to her that only Paige could hear.

"Thank you. For everything you did to... help me," Kayla said softly to the sisters, tears steadily moving down her face.

The last thing the sisters saw before the bright blueness of an orb enveloped them was Kayla's uncle putting a fatherly arm around his waving niece.

**Six Weeks Later**

Paige was sitting at the kitchen table with the newspaper out again. This time there weren't any news article that fascinated her (as exciting as activists protesting the inhumane treatment of red ants was, it wasn't Paige's thing). Piper was monitoring Wyatt eating his breakfast while having some of her own, and Phoebe was fighting with the coffee machine.

"Why won't you work!" She shouted at it, giving it a hard shake.

"Is it plugged in?" Piper asked idly wiping a cloth across Wyatt's drool covered lower lip.

"Of course its—Oh..."

Paige couldn't help but snort into her cereal.

"Its not that—Hey what's that?" Phoebe asked suddenly.

Piper and Paige looked up at the same time as a small piece of paper finished materializing on the kitchen table.

Paige curiously leaned forward and picked up the paper. Her eyes flew back and forth across it, then she smiled and handed it off to her sisters.

"Counter, Kayla Laura. Report Card." The top of the paper read.

Piper and Phoebe both slowly started smiling as they read through the class listings (Introduction to Elementary Magic, The Secrecy Of Magic: Why Do We Hide?, Basic Orbing 101), and the "Excellent" marks that Kayla had received in all of the classes.

Down at the bottom of the page under the "Headmaster" title was Gideon's signature, along with a hand written comment that wasn't Gideon's hand writing.

"Thank you. -Kayla."

The End

**- - - - - - - - - - **

**_A/N And now my final thanks: Thanks to Rusty and Basil who were two of my most dedicated readers and for the most part my stories Beta Readers. I think you two saw alot of this before anyone else did._**

**_Also, big things to Rachael who caught some of the really stupid spelling/word errors and pointed them out to me right after I posted the story._**

**_And a HUGE thanks to everyone who's been reading my fanfic and harassing me to update. Anyone who knows me well enough knows I refuse to update unless I know atleast SOMEONE is reading. Even one review is enough to make me put up 6 pages of text._**

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**_Now... for a sequel... I've been getting alot of calls for a sequel... I just might write one... I've been juggling some possible story ideas, and I even threw a little something in at the end of this fic to make one of them work most delightfully. :) Hehe. _**

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**_Well... We'll see what happens._**

**_Keep reviewing! Tell a friend about this fic! If I get lots of reviews and calls for a sequel it'll probably happen :D_**

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**_Signing off,_**

**_-Rebkos_**


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